


A Rush of Red Flames

by Neyasochi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Gryffindor Keith, M/M, Slow Burn, Slytherin shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-15 23:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16073960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyasochi/pseuds/Neyasochi
Summary: Keith stops enjoying the spectacle of the Goblet of Fire the moment a fourth champion’s name is called.Hisname.It's irregular, even for the Triwizard Tournament, but once selected he has little choice but to participate in the three trials set before him. And as if worrying about dragons and death-defying challenges wasn't bad enough, Keith also has to contend with Shiro— the beloved captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team and the rightful champion of Hogwarts— thinking he cheated his way into the tournament.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For junowasdead based on her [beautiful art and all-around awesome HP AU!](https://twitter.com/junowasdead/status/1038878553490829313) (except shiro is not yet a silver fox)

Keith stops enjoying the spectacle of the Goblet of Fire— all red flames and sparks as another slip of paper shoots forth— the moment the fourth champion’s name is called. _His_ name.

The thundering applause that greeted Takashi Shirogane is nowhere to be found as he rises from the Gryffindor table on shaky legs, unable to answer his friends’ questioning stares or the thinly veiled outrage of the visiting students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. The silence fills his ears like cotton, fuzzy and distorted, and only gives way to scandalized murmurs once he’s departed the Great Hall. It shrouds him even as he’s led up to Headmaster Alfor’s office to defend himself.

“Please, sir, I didn’t put my name in there! I _swear_. It never even crossed my mind.” He digs his heels into the thick rug spread across the stone floor, terrified by the prospect of expulsion.

“I’m well aware, Keith,” Alfor replies, smiling kindly. His phoenix chitters from its perch by his desk, its plumed head twisting to study him. “At sixteen, the Goblet shouldn’t have accepted your name— much less chosen two champions from the same school. It _is_ a concerning mystery and we are investigating, but I trust you played no part.”

A little of the fight drains out of Keith. He’s still dulled from the shock as the headmaster explains their binding obligation to abide the Goblet’s decision if they want the tournament to proceed and sends him back to the Gryffindor tower, where Lance and Hunk are still awake in their beds, waiting up late for him.

Lance draws the curtains around his bed and skulks after Keith explains he won’t be punished, but instead is expected to participate in the Triwizard Tournament along with everyone else.

“Oh no,” Lance sighs, peeking out just to mock Keith with an exaggerated pout. “You get to soak up all the glory _and_ hang out with Shiro during the competition. _Tragic._ ”

“Ignore him,” Hunk says as he throws Keith a chocolate frog and dims the conjured light from his wand. “Hey, listen. Everything’ll feel better tomorrow. Or, y’know… it might not, since everyone thinks you cheated your way in and the other schools are furious and the Triwizard Tournament is historically _highly_ dangerous— 

“Stellar reassurance, Hunk.” Lance’s voice is muffled from the pillow smushed over his head. 

Hunk heaves out a heavy sigh. “Well. Good night.” 

The dormitory goes still and quiet, save for some snoring, but sleep never comes for Keith. He lies on his back and stares out the window as the stars slowly crawl past, wondering why on earth someone would put him up to this.

 

* * *

 

Over the next two days, Keith is acutely aware of a shift in the student body— a taking of sides between the two champions from Hogwarts, and the split is far from even.

“You guys feel a chill in here?” Pidge asks dryly at breakfast, squeezed in between Lance and Hunk at the Gryffindor table. She gives a feigned little shudder.

There’s a wide berth around the four of them and more than enough chatter to set Keith on edge. “They think I cheated,” he mutters while angrily stabbing a number of small sausages onto his fork.

“Yeah,” Lance agrees, shrugging. “Shiro probably thinks you did too.”

“Ignore him,” Pidge sighs. As the owls carrying the mail begin to filter in through the Great Hall’s high windows, she mutters, “I _would_ love to know how your name got in the Goblet, though.”

Keith gestures emphatically up and down at himself as he chews down his food. “Yeah, me too,” he garbles out as soon as he can manage it. 

Across the hall, he can see Shiro sitting at the Slytherin table, flanked on either side by the white-haired duo of the Head Boy and Head Girl. Around him are admirers from every house— no doubt wishing him good luck and consoling him on the unfortunate business with that scheming Gryffindor— and Pidge’s brother, who might as well be an honorary Slytherin.

As if sensing Keith’s gaze, Shiro turns his head a fraction and happens to catch him staring. It’s too far to read the older boy’s expression, but Keith’s ears burn as he pointedly looks back to Lance.

His focus is shot during classes, and even many nudges from Hunk and Pidge can’t keep him focused on Coran’s lesson. It’s only Muggle Studies anyway, an easy course he’d figured would help lighten his load now that he is first-string Seeker for Gryffindor with practices looming near and—

 _Ah, shit_. How is he supposed to keep up with Quidditch while participating in three grueling tournament trials? _Well,_ _Shiro can pull it off,_ his brain helpfully supplies. _And while serving as team captain, too._

The distraction follows him into the Gryffindor common room, where he spends a half-hour running his finger along the feathery ridge of his quill rather than penning his essay on parchment. He ought to be practicing the arsenal of wards and charms Pidge spent the afternoon trying to teach him to prepare for the ominous first challenge. He ought to be figuring out how his name wound up in the Goblet at all. He ought to be up in his bed, insulated from stares and whispers by his fluffy comforter.

Instead, he ends up wandering the castle grounds with Hunk and Romelle by his side, grateful for a break from prying eyes and gossiping mouths. Even Hunk’s worried babbling about getting in trouble is soothing in its own way, but the enchanted map left to him by his mother is helpful as ever in avoiding any teachers or prefects who might deduct house points upon catching them out after curfew. 

“I must say,” Romelle murmurs as they pass the darkened lake where the giant squid lurks, “I’m really glad they’re toning down the tournament now that they’re bringing it back. Coran says it used to be quite the bloodbath— maimings, deaths, vanishing champions.”

“Wonderful.”

“Uh, Keith,” Hunk says, still staring anxiously down at the map in his hands. “What’s going on over there?”

Keith follows the point of Hunk’s finger to a spot in the forest where dozens of names are gathered. Most mean nothing to him, but a couple stand out— like Lady Luxia of Beauxbatons and Iverson of Durmstrang. Romelle hooks her arm through Hunk’s and leads him along as they investigate, Keith leading the way as he puzzles over why the visiting headmasters are in the Forbidden Forest after nightfall.

His answer comes through the bare branches of trees shedding their leaves for winter, where he can see a camp of some kind, consisting of four enormous cages that contain bound behemoths. The light is dim and the view is obscured, but Keith glimpses enough to know— ridged backs and whipping tails, sail-like wings and guttural noises that dredge up primal fear.

The brief flash of a spout of flame seals it, the burning glow gripping Keith by the heart even as Romelle gasps and Hunk wobbles like he might faint.

_Dragons._

 

* * *

 

The day before the tournament’s first task, Keith takes an early run to clear his thoughts of the past week’s mess. He’s been dreaming of dragons— fire-breathing and glistening-fanged, with his skin blistering under their flames and his lungs flooded by smoke— and racking his mind for a way to survive them. Pidge and Hunk had spent the better part of yesterday afternoon grilling him on his plan of action, and all Keith had come up with was attempting to summon his broom and hoping for the best.

They’d all found the discussion somewhat less than reassuring.

He’s skirting around the Whomping Willow when he spies someone in a robe heading across the grounds toward the Forbidden Forest, a heavy burlap sack cradled in their arms. On closer approach, he realizes it’s _Shiro_ , absent his usual silver-haired companions. It’s uncommon to see other students out on this side of the grounds so early — much less Takashi Shirogane, the _rightful_ Hogwarts champion.

Keith’s heard that phrase whispered behind his back in between classes, and his heart sinks to think he’s infringing on an experience and distinction that should’ve been Shiro’s alone. _Worse_ , Shiro thinks he’s done it intentionally, and through dishonest means.

He sighs. Though his feet turn to lead and his heart continues to plummet down into his stomach, Keith changes course and follows Shiro toward the wood. It doesn’t take long for the older boy to catch sight of him; after a little jolt of surprise at the unexpected company, he waves Keith over.

“Keith, right?” Shiro asks, though there’s no way he can’t know, not with the whole castle filled with gossip about Keith’s conniving ways. “Pidge’s friend. I’m not sure we’ve ever properly met.”

“Uh, no, I guess not.” They’d passed in the halls and briefly occupied the same two-meter radius while Pidge and her brother swapped books, but that was it. Shiro— and all of the Slytherin trio, for that matter— is several leagues beyond him, and walking side-by-side like this is the closest they’ve ever been. “Yeah, it’s Keith.”

“Shiro,” he introduces, like there’s any need. Like anyone in Hogwarts doesn’t know the star chaser of Slytherin, the boy with his name on a dozen school trophies, the _champion_ of Hogwarts. “Are you always out this early?”

“Most days,” Keith answers. It’s habitual at this point, and he feels off and shorter-tempered on days he skips the routine. “I hope I’m not bothering you and your… uh, sack of meat? I just wanted to apologize, Shiro. You were supposed to be our champion— our _only_ champion— and I’m sorry for stepping all over that. But I’m telling the truth when I say I didn’t put my name in there—”

“I know,” Shiro says with a little smile. At Keith’s surprised gape, he adds, “Heard your side of it through the Holt grapevine. But even without that… I saw your expression when your name was called, Keith. That wasn’t triumph.”

“No,” Keith agrees, his relief showing in the form of an awkward laugh. Shiro didn’t blame him. Shiro _understands_. “I don’t know what happened. Or how I’m going to make it through the first task, let alone three.” A thought occurs to him. “Hey, Shiro, do you have any idea what we’re up against tomorrow?”

“Fishing for information already, huh?” He tutts disappointedly, prompting a mortified blush from Keith. “Whoa, _relax_. I was only teasing you. And no, I’ve no idea what’s planned. Why?”

Keith licks his lips, considering. From what little he’s seen and heard of Luxia and Iverson, he thinks it’s safe to say they’ve passed the hint along to their respective students. “It’s _dragons_ , Shiro. Four of them. I’m pretty sure the other champions know too, and I didn’t want to leave you in the dark.”

Shiro whistles low and adjusts the burlap bag in his arms, nearly losing his grip in the process. Keith can smell the faint bitterness of blood wafting from it. “Dragons? I thought they said the new tournament would be tamer,” he mutters. “I’ll never hear the end of it. Adam’s going to be _pissed_.”

“Your boyfriend?” Keith asks, as if he doesn’t know— as if he and the rest of the school haven’t seen them attached at the hip for over a year.

“Ex.” Shiro throws it out with a forced sort of casualty. “As of last week. He was vehemently opposed to the idea of even putting my name into the Goblet. Wasn’t worth the risk, to him. So… he gave me a choice.” 

And he’d chosen the tournament. Keith’s stomach drops anew— Shiro had put aside a yearlong relationship for the mere chance of becoming the Hogwarts champion, while Keith had been handed the opportunity on a platter. Before he can offer any kind of condolence to Shiro, a flicker of darkness in the woods ahead jolts Keith to a stop.

But Shiro just keeps on walking, unfazed, and as the flutter of Keith’s heart begins to quiet he recognizes what lies ahead: thestrals, gaunt and sinewy and hauntingly dark. It’s the flock that draws the carriages to and from the castle, picking their way through the trees toward them.

“Oh. That explains the raw meat.”

“I was wondering if you were going to ask,” Shiro laughs as he sets the burlap sack on the ground and fishes out a glistening chunk of liver. “Offal, from the kitchens. So, you can see them too, huh?”

“Yeah,” Keith answers as the flock draws near, eagerly bobbing their heads at Shiro. “Ever since I got here.”

The Slytherin starts tossing out chunks of organ meat, letting the thestrals feed one by one. “My grandfather passed just a few weeks before my second year. I already knew about thestrals, and seeing them was… oddly comforting. I’d come visit whenever I missed him.”

Shiro offers him the last piece of raw meat: a chunk of heart, heavy with congealed blood. Keith lets it sit in his palm as a thestral gently lips at his hand to devour it. “My dad… um, it was smoke inhalation. He was a firefighter.”

Shiro’s eyes— a clouded silver, intensely soft— are on him even as he pets along the spinal ridge of the largest thestral. His sympathetic look turns troubled, and Keith can see the subtle twist of his lips as he searches for something to say. “Makes me wish we weren’t facing dragons tomorrow. Will you be alright?”

Keith nods, his throat tight. Fear of fire had never stopped his father, after all, and Gryffindors are meant to be brave. It’s only Shiro’s concern that leaves him feeling weak and renders his heart tender. As the skeletal thestral nuzzles at his fingers with a sharp, beaklike snout, he asks, “What about you?” 

“Me?” Shiro’s dark eyebrows lift high, and the hand he presses to the front of his robes leaves a bloody little smudge. He notices his mistake too late, grumbling at himself, and wipes his hands clean on the burlap. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine, Keith. And so will you.”

 

* * *

 

Stewing in the tent before the first trial isn’t the _worst_ emotional turmoil Keith has ever experienced, but it’s high up there. They’d each drawn their dragons without even feigning surprise at the reveal, and he has the mixed fortune of going last. The miniature Hungarian Horntail is currently rolling across his palm and spewing tiny puffs of flame, and it’d be damn near cute if Keith wasn’t an hour away from facing off with a beast of its likeness as large as a house.

Shiro had drawn the third dragon— a Swedish Short-Snout, silvery blue and heavily-horned— and he sits beside Keith as they wait their turns. Plaxum leaves first, and the sounds from outside of the tent rattle Keith down to the bone. James is next, pausing to nod respectfully to the two of them before he goes.

“You look confident,” Shiro says once they’re alone, the ministry official overseeing them standing just outside the tent.

“Do I?” Keith asks. His throat and tongue are chalky and dry; it’s as if all the moisture in his body is seeping out through his sweaty palms.

Shiro side-eyes him and nods. He sounds borderline impressed as he says, “You have a very assured resting face.”

“Glad I have that much going for me.” There’s a swooping gasp from the crowd in the stands, and a furious roar rises to drown it out. Another round of cold sweat breaks out down Keith’s back. “So… my wand’s core has dragon heartstrings. Kind of weird to think I’ll be using it against an actual dragon.”

Shiro snorts, amused. “Think yours came from a Hungarian Horntail? That’d be a little poetic.”

“A little,” Keith agrees. 

“My wand is unicorn hair and yew,” Shiro says, flashing a wry smile. “I suppose that makes it _yew-_ nicorn.”

It’s awful— as are their current circumstances— but Keith laughs anyway. Lifting his spirits seems to have been Shiro’s intent, because the older boy then settles back in his chair with a touch of satisfaction before closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths. For the next ten minutes of silent waiting, Keith curls his gloved hands into the fabric covering his thighs and tries to focus on anything but choking flames and the discomfort of sitting in a puddle of his own sweat.

He feels the gentle nudge of an elbow as Shiro’s name is called by the tournament official at the tent’s entrance.

“Patience yields focus, Keith,” Shiro says as he stands, reaching down to shake the Gryffindor’s hand. “Best of luck.”

“You, too.” 

And then it’s quiet, barring the inhuman screeches and the rising and falling tide of the crowd’s reaction. His heart drops at a particularly pained gasp from the crowd; the anxiety of not knowing how Shiro is faring is nearly as pressing as his own predicament. Keith barely registers his own steps when his turn comes and he’s led to the ring. This time, as his name is bellowed before the crowd, people are cheering for him. 

… Or maybe it’s for the dragon.

Their furor eventually turns to white noise in his ears, rushing away like the tide as he steps into a boulder-strewn arena. It’s scorched to hell and back, with stone blackened, cracked, and split from unbearable heat. As the audience falls silent, Keith can hear the engine-like purr of the Hungarian Horntail from where it sits crouched over its nest. In among the true dragon eggs he spies the glimmer of gold— his target.

The Horntail’s eyes are gold, too.

“Accio broom.” It comes out quiet and weak, that reptilian stare lingering in his mind. His hand shakes harder as the Horntail begins to uncoil from its nest, lips drawing back to bear fangs.

 _Patience yields focus._ Wand in hand, he squeezes his eyes shut and slows his breaths, even as the dragon’s footfalls tremble the ground under his feet. He thinks of Shiro’s encouragement— and his eyes, grey like the lining of midnight clouds as the moonlight pierces them— and this time, he imagines his broom perfectly. It’s laid out on his bed in the dormitory beside an open window, waiting for his call. “Accio broom!”

Moments pass with only the worried murmurs of the crowd and the guttural, crackling hiss of the approaching Horntail, but Keith can _feel_ it coming, pulled by the thread of his charm. His broom reaches him at the last possible moment, and Keith snags the handle just as it jets past. A sudden billow of heat wafts across his back, potent enough to evaporate the sweat from his nape. A very near miss. 

The wind sings loud in his ears as he circles the ring low, but louder is the whistling whip of the dragon’s spiked tail toward him. Keith rolls to dodge it just in time, only to be confronted by a toothy maw stretched wide. He weaves around that, too, and trusts in his instincts as he dives low under the Horntail’s wing and hunkers low to his broom. 

The tips of his boots nearly drag across the charred earth as he races to the nest, a hand stretched toward that golden glimmer like he’s hunting the snitch in a Quidditch match. Behind him, wings beat like the coming of a storm; heat chases him by inches, the jet of flame probably just shy of igniting the tail of his broom.

If not for the grip of his gloves, he’d never have managed to grab his prize. As it is, Keith tucks the golden egg against his side and pulls the nose of his broom up, high above the stands where chains keep the Hungarian Horntail from following. It spits fire at him anyway, writhing furiously over his escape.

And it feels— unbelievable. _Incredible._ As the immediate danger fades, the relief that floods him is tinged with _victory_. The thrill stays humming in his blood, sharper than any nosedive or last minute save he’s ever pulled off. Even the press of bodies trying to congratulate him once he lands isn’t so bad, especially after a week of being shunned. As he’s ushered through the rows of oversized tents by a swelling crowd of students and the grabby hands of tournament officials, Keith turns and inadvertently catches a glimpse through the opening of the nearby hospital tent. He stills, eyes wide as he reels back a few degrees.

Inside is Shiro, tended by Madam Te-osh as he sits on an examination table. His clothes and skin are scorched as badly as the ring, and he’s dusted head to toe with pitch black soot, but his face—

His face, drenched from his cheeks down in a streaky mess of blood and ash, the gash torn straight across his nose exposing a flash of white bone.

Hands continue to tug Keith along and he’s too stunned to resist their pull. Distantly, he registers Coran’s voice in his ear, assuring him that Shiro will be alright; Lance, Hunk, Pidge and the other Gryffindors call out to him in triumph and celebration. But the golden egg in his hands feels as dense and heavy as lead, his limbs all gone weak as the heady high of adrenaline is punched out of him all at once.

And this was only their first trial.

 


	2. Chapter 2

After the first trial, things change.

Madam Te-osh’s magic works swiftly to heal the burns and gashes left from Shiro’s brush with the Swedish Short-Snout, but even her deft hand can’t erase all that was done. By breakfast the next morning, what remains is a pale slash across his nose, cheek to cheek. Lance says it was caused by a wicked claw as it hooked around Shiro’s conjured shield and crushed it; he says it was Shiro’s athleticism and masterful use of a _fumosmotus_ spell to dart toward the nest that salvaged his performance, despite the points he lost for taking so much damage.

That Lance is even talking to him without overt bitterness is perhaps the most telling change of late. Apparently, watching Shiro get wrecked by the Short-Snout and Keith nearly get roasted was enough to sober him on the glory of being a champion in the Triwizard Tournament. Lance isn’t really the type to voice an apology, but he makes up for the jealous spat in other ways: gifting Keith a tin of his mother’s famous pumpkin bark; loudly calling out anyone who continues to badmouth him; picking up the assignments he misses for tournament interviews and photoshoots.

The rest of the student body is similarly affected. Now when whispers follow Keith, they’re generally without scorn and venom. The sudden outpouring of support is more confounding than the vitriol was— people he barely recognizes stop him in the hall to compliment or congratulate him, and even the Head Boy and Girl seem to pay him special mind.

Hogwarts _can_ stand to have two champions, it seems.

The second trial doesn’t fall until after the new year, and so Keith doesn’t mind letting the golden egg supposedly carrying his next clue lie in his trunk for a few weeks more. He’d opened it in the Gryffindor common room upon returning after the first trial and unleashed screaming hell on everyone present; Romelle had clamped it shut before he could, wide-eyed and frazzled by the inhuman screeching.

For now, all Keith has to contend with are classes, Quidditch, and the distant prospect of the Yule Ball. It should be relatively smooth sailing, he thinks.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t, and Keith isn’t sure why he’d ever bothered to hope differently.

“So, you and Pidge decided to skip the Yule Ball to make some super advanced potion that takes literal _months_ to brew,” Lance drawls, “for extra credit you don’t even _need_ , but then you offered to take Romelle to the ball since she was all upset that no one had asked her yet?”

“It gets worse,” Hunk mumbles from where he lay on their dormitory floor, spread like a depressed starfish. “Earlier this afternoon, Shay came and asked me to be her date to the Yule Ball. Shay! Asked _me!_ I’ve had a crush on her since second year—”

“We know,” Keith and Lance say in unison.

“You didn’t tell her yes, did you?” Keith haltingly asks, but he can tell by Hunk’s general aura of indecision and gloom that the outlook isn’t good.

“I did!” he wails. “It was like a someone cast a babbling jinx on me! I was so excited that I agreed before I had time to think. The same with Romelle! I just wanted to be a supportive friend, but then I realized I’d be flaking on Pidge…  in my defense, though, I didn’t realize that Felix Felicis took _six months_ to brew and would need to be _babied_ every night for all of December.”

He drags his hands down his face and groans out so long that it eventually turns into a whine. “If only I had like a… a time turner! Or maybe Polyjuice potion? I feel like three of me could fix this. Wait a minute! Since you two don’t have dates to the ball anyway—”

“Nuh-uh, no way. Forget it, Hunk,” Lance immediately counters. “After what happened our second year? I’m never touching Polyjuice potion again.”

“Ugh, it takes too long to brew anyway. The ball is in less than a week.” Hunk casts an arm over his face. “I’ve fucked up.”

“Sure did, big guy,” Keith agrees, giving Hunk’s leg a sympathetic little nudge with his socked foot.

Lance heaves out a sigh and flops face down onto his bed. “I can’t believe that I’m the dateless one and Hunk is tied up with three different girls.”

“Lance, this isn’t an exactly enviable situation,” Hunk tells him, irritation bleeding into his tone. He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs at the bridge of his nose.

“Nope,” Keith says, dragging out the word. “But the sooner you clear the air, the better.”

Hunk sighs and somehow sinks further into the plush rug. His jaw works side to side with the slow grind of his teeth, reluctant to admit it. “Yeah.”

The fallout of him coming clean isn’t dramatic, but it’s messy enough that Romelle and Shay both decide to go alone rather than be tangled in some unfortunate and unintentional love triangle. And Pidge, utterly exhausted by all the talk about the Yule Ball and romance woes, simply tells Hunk to go to the ball anyway so that she might be spared his moping.

“You owe me, though,” she tells him at breakfast the day before Christmas Eve, eyeing her potions partner over the rim of her goblet of orange juice. “That Felix Felicis is fickle and stirring it all by myself is going to turn my arms into jelly.”

“Pidge, I’m going to buy you the biggest mug of butterbeer when we go to Hogsmeade this weekend—”

“And a bag of fizzing whizzbees.”

“And some jelly slugs,” Hunk promises on top of her other demands, “for your jelly arms.”

“Good,” Pidge says, her mouth screwing into a tiny smile. “Also, I hear Romelle actually got one of the Beauxbatons girls to go as her date, so you don’t have to worry about her.”

Hunk’s relief is nearly tangible, his broad shoulders sinking as he sighs out loud. “Oh, good! I was worried she’d—”

“Literally _everyone_ has a date but me,” Lance interrupts to moan. His gaze slides to the side. “And Keith, I guess, but that’s no consolation. Will someone please cast Obscuro on me so I don’t have to watch Allura dancing with Lotor all night—” 

“Mm, Allura’s not going with Lotor,” Pidge says, and Lance instantly perks up in his seat.

Keith makes a thoughtful sound. “I thought she always went to stuff like this with Lotor?”

“Not this time, Keith!” Lance snaps. “Pidge! Tell me more.”

“There’s isn’t more,” she replies, shrugging as she pushes her glasses higher up her nose. “All I know is that Lotor went home for the holidays and that Matt is going to take Allura to the Yule Ball instead—”

“What?!” Lance notices the heads turning in his direction and lowers himself back down into his seat. “What? _Your brother?”_

“Yes, Lance, my brother,” Pidge grits out. “They’re just going as friends, okay? Calm down.”

“Okay. Okay, I’m fine. Just grappling with the knowledge that I had a window to ask Allura to the ball and missed it.” He bites his lips for a moment and stares at the table. “How did I even get into Gryffindor if I’m too much of a coward to ask out the most beautiful and amazing girl in Hogwarts?” 

Pidge gives a little cough and Lance immediately sits back up. “Oh, Pidge, you’re great too—”

“Feels _very_ sincere,” she snorts as she stands. “Well, I think I’ve wasted enough time on your Yule Ball drama. You have my sympathy, Keith. I know you’d skip it if you could.”

Keith nods and answers her little salute with one of his own, smiling as Pidge heads back to the Ravenclaw table. Like Pidge, crowded events aren’t usually his idea of a great time. And she’s right. If he weren’t obligated to attend the ball as a school champion— and dance in the opening number, too— he’d be steering well clear of the Great Hall on Christmas.

“So, Keith… whose feet are you going to step all over during the opening dance?” Lance asks as the three of them head back up to the Gryffindor tower, arms laden with muffins and fruit for later snacking. “You never asked anyone to go with you.”

He hadn’t. There was too much expectation tied up in bringing someone to the Yule Ball, and Keith felt it almost unfair to lash anyone to himself for the whole evening. He’d be a poor date, anyway— there's only one person in all of Hogwarts he thinks he might not mind spending the night stumbling through the waltz with, and he has a slimmer chance of managing that than he does of winning the Triwizard Tournament.

“I guess I’ll figure something out.”

 

* * *

 

Come Christmas, the Great Hall is transformed. High above, wintry skies swirl across the enchanted ceiling and drizzle down snow that vanishes before it hits the floor. Sparkling icicles hang in doorway arches and frost glimmers over every stone surface too, but as the champions and their partners proceed down the center of the hall to exuberant fanfare, Keith is close to sweating. 

As the small orchestra begins a slow waltz, everything lurches into motion. James is dancing with a freckled blond from Durmstrang, while Plaxum twirls around with a redhead from Beauxbatons. Shiro has Adam, who seems to be a pretty amicable ex; they're both a little awkward and stiff in each other’s arms, despite being all smiles.

And Keith has Hunk.

“Just follow my lead, okay?” Hunk whispers before Keith’s anxiety can settle in and sever all coordination to his limbs.

He does, and it’s a breeze after that. Hunk is a terrific partner, perfectly accommodating and easy to fall into step with, and as they glide around the ballroom floor Keith thinks on what a pity it is that Hunk doesn’t have a proper date. He can see flashes of Romelle over Hunk’s shoulder, grinning ear to ear as she and some Durmstrang student pile their plates high at the buffet while everyone else is distracted by the dancing. He glimpses Shay, too, watching attentively with a dozen other Hufflepuffs.

As the dance ends, Keith has to admit that the experience wasn’t the tragedy it easily could’ve been. It’s a bright spot of luck that he’s grateful for as a round of whooping applause makes Hunk blush bright. They have to fight their way through a flood of dancing couples as the next song begins, with Hunk politely turning down multiple offers to dance along the way.

“I’d have really embarrassed myself out there if not for you,” Keith tells him as they head toward a table where Lance already sits, sullen in his pretty blue dress robes. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, Hunk,” Lance grins, his tone warm and teasing. “I am genuinely impressed. You somewhow managed to make it look like Keith knew what he was doing.”

Hunk waves their comments away. “What else are friends for? And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to hit that buffet before Romelle clears it out.”

“Absolutely,” Keith agrees, already standing. He tugs Lance up by the elbow, willing to drag him if need be; he'll be less sulky once he gets a few shrimp cocktail and petit fours in him.

But before they even leave their table, Shay appears with her hands shyly clasped behind her back, all winsome smiles. She’s in a pretty blue dress accented with citrine gems, her usual plain hoop earring traded for ones enchanted to leave a little trail of stardust sparkles. “Happy Yule! You were amazing out there, Hunk,” she says with a little blush.

“Really?” he responds, completely caught off guard. “Um, thanks. I’ve been waltzing around the kitchen with my mom since I was like… this big,” he explains, reaching down to suggest a height of around three feet.

“It shows,” Shay says, her hands now clasped in front of her. She wrings them nervously. “I know things were… awkward last time we spoke, but if you still have an interest, I would love to dance with you. If that’s okay with you, Keith?” she hurries to add, as if Keith has any kind of claim to him. 

“Take him away, Shay,” he says, lifting his chin as he shoos them both away. “Just have him back at Gryffindor Tower by curfew.”

That makes the pair of them giggle, and somewhere behind him, Lance makes a soft gagging sound. With Shay and Hunk already arm-in-arm as they hurry back to the dancefloor, he and Lance head to the buffet spread alone. 

“She’s gorgeous tonight, right?” Lance muses as he piles a plate high with shrimp and tiny finger sandwiches. “I mean, she is every night. And every day. But that dress is really— _wow_.” 

It is, objectively. It’s a creamy white that fades into a deep periwinkle, glittering with little crystals that fleck the dark material like stars, and it shimmers with every step Allura takes. She’s dancing with Shiro— as she has been for a while now, despite both of them coming with other dates.

And though Keith doesn’t voice it aloud to Lance, he thinks Shiro’s outfit is just as _wow_. The Slytherin captain’s formal robes are an elegant black with silver thread and brocade, perfectly fitted over his broad chest and trim waist. A tasteful half-cape drapes over one shoulder, and the fabric moves with the dark fluidity and sheen of oil as he dances. Keith almost envies how confidently Shiro can move across the ballroom floor, whether he’s leading or Allura is.

The pair is all grace, smiling bright at each other, and it’s strikingly odd seeing just the two of them tonight, no Lotor present to complete the iconic Slytherin trio. 

The rest of the ball passes in a blur. He whiles most of it away by tossing peppermint candies into Lance’s mouth while Hunk sweeps Shay off of her feet. Eventually, Romelle settles at their table with her date— a Durmstrang girl named Nadia— and a loose competition to see who can catch the most candies in their mouth forms. (Nadia wins by a landslide, fiercely proud of the victory, and Keith can see why she was chosen to vie for entry into the tournament. Intensity seems to be their school’s hallmark.)

Keith is socially exhausted by the time the ball starts to wind down and Lance finally agrees to head back to the tower. He’s already imagining the pure joy of flopping on his bead and burrowing under the covers when a hand on his shoulder stops him short just outside of the Great Hall, and Keith is startled to turn and find himself eye-level with Shiro’s chest.

“Could I have a word?” the Slytherin asks, looking from Keith to Lance and back again. “With Keith?”

For a moment, Lance stares at the two of them— maybe paralyzed from near proximity to his Quidditch hero. His thin brows raise slowly, and he’s blatantly confused as he murmurs, “Uh, yeah. I’ll be waiting for you on the next floor, Keith.”

“Here, let’s go somewhere just a bit more quiet,” Shiro says, gesturing for him to follow. He leads Keith to a darkened doorway alcove not far from the entrance to the Great Hall, tucked just out of sight. Keith can still hear the faint stirrings of music from the band and the muted murmur of distant conversations.

“Did you enjoy the ball?” Shiro asks, the barest curve of an expectant smile on his lips.

“It was… nice,” Keith says, shrugging. He’d had fun, honestly, but he still couldn’t help but feel glad the whole ordeal was over. “Yeah, I liked it. The food was really good.”

“I didn’t see you dancing with anyone,” Shiro comments, a tiny crease forming between his brows. “After the opening number, I mean.”

Keith lifts a shoulder and looks away. “Not much of a dancer. Figured I’d spare my classmates’ feet.”

Shiro’s laughter has the effect of a cheering charm, a peppery kind of contentment crackling through his chest at the sound. “Um, I wanted to let you know that you helped me a lot in that first trial,” Keith adds, voice dropping low.

There’s a touch of color high on Shiro’s cheeks, linked by the jagged sliver of scar that bridges his nose. “I did?”

“You really lightened the mood,” Keith tells him, “and that ‘patience yields focus’ thing? It helped me concentrate out in the ring.” As did the memory of Shiro’s calming voice and striking eyes, but he thinks that portion is best left out.

“Really?” Shiro’s eyebrows lift high, as if skeptical, but his smile is pleased and slightly off-angle. He brushes at a spot on his reddened cheek with the back of a knuckle. “It’s something my grandfather used to tell me, and over the years I’ve found it a helpful reminder when the pressure is on.”

“It was,” Keith agrees, hoping Shiro understands just how much he owes him. He’d meant to thank the older boy long before this, but no time had ever seemed right— Shiro was perpetually flanked by Allura and Lotor and Matt, if not a dozen adoring admirers as well, and their interactions had been mostly limited to smiles and waves as they passed each other between classes. “Honestly, I’m not sure I’d have made it without your advice.”

At that, Shiro pulls a face. “Keith, _you_ outscored _me_ on the first trial. Don’t sell yourself short,” he adds, tone carrying that same note of reassurance Keith had heard with the thestrals and in the tent outside the arena. “You could afford to be a little more confident, you know. A little more ambitious.”

“Very Slytherin of you to say.”

Shiro does a poor job of stifling a grin as he rolls his eyes. “So, have you figured out the egg yet?”

Guilt rolls down into Keith’s stomach as he thinks of the golden egg, currently sitting in his trunk underneath layers of robes and underwear. Reluctantly, he admits, “No.”

“Good! Then I get to repay you for the tip about the dragons,” Shiro says, positively beaming about the prospect. He leans in, mouth close to Keith’s ear, and whispers, “You need to open it in the bath, underwater— a big tub helps. Try the prefect’s bathroom on the fifth floor.”

Keith’s spine tingles like a ghost just passed through him. The warmth of Shiro’s breath is distracting, as is the scent that clings to him and his fine robes— woodsy and soft, sweetened by the tiniest hint of vanilla.

One thought hitches in Keith’s mind, despite how happy he’d be to follow Shiro’s words to the letter. “But… I’m not a prefect or a Quidditch captain—”

At that exact moment, the glimmer of something dangling just above their heads catches Keith’s gaze. He’s puzzled for a split second, but it doesn’t take an outstanding mark in Herbology to recognize the plant strung up in the doorway, even when it’s enchanted with sparkling frost.

_Mistletoe._

Shiro notices it just after Keith does. “ _Oh!_ Oh, um…”

“W-we don’t have to,” Keith stammers out upon seeing his own faint panic reflected in Shiro’s wide eyes. 

“Of course not,” Shiro agrees quickly, his blush reaching up even to his ears. “No, that’s— we’re— you know what? I should get going. Big day tomorrow. Training. Merry Christmas, Keith! Good luck with the egg.”

“Thanks, you too!” he says as Shiro hastily strides down the hall— albeit in the wrong direction, if he means to head back to his dormitory.

At around twenty paces, the Slytherin abruptly turns around and stalks back Keith’s way, sheepishly muttering, “The dungeons are _this_ way,” as he passes by.

Keith gets to watch him leave a second time— all broad shoulders under that tailored robe, endearing as he repeatedly rakes a hand back through his hair and shakes his head while he walks. He lingers for a few moments after Shiro turns the corner, alone in the dark but for a few strategic candles and the white-toned light spilling out of the Great Hall’s entrance.

And then Keith starts trudging up a nearby staircase, unfazed as it begins to move while he’s only on the fourth step. He resolves to find Lance, head back to Gryffindor Tower, and flop into bed. And tomorrow— while much of the school is still away for the Christmas holiday and classes are out of session— he’ll figure out a way to sneak himself and the egg up to the prefect’s bathroom.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fumosmotus is a teleportation spell i made up after my roommate reminded me that i have the power to do that, lol. I wanted something reminiscent of the black lion’s phasing powers and isn’t banned on Hogwarts grounds (like apparating lol). It only works over very short distances, the caster disappearing and reappearing in plumes of black smoke :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the wonderful @junowasdead, as always!! :)

As he stares at the gilded door that refuses to budge, Keith isn’t sure what he’d expected. _Of course_ the prefect’s bathroom is restricted by a password to keep regular students like himself out. Shiro must have forgotten to mention it in his haste to leave following the Yule Ball, and now Keith is at a loss.

Desperate, he crouches down to eye level with the lock and points the tip of his wand at the keyhole. “Aloho—”

“What are you doing?”

Keith recognizes that voice. His entire body remains frozen while his gaze slides up and over to find the Head Boy watching him from the end of the hall— regal head tilted, long white hair spilled over his shoulder, and arms crossed expectantly.

The Gryffindor springs up, stiff as a broomstick, and gapes. He’d thought Lotor was still away for the Christmas holiday. “Uh…”

“Is this about the egg?” Lotor questions. At Keith’s frantic nod, the older boy’s gaze pointedly slips to the side. He sighs and asks, “Shiro didn’t give you the password, did he?” 

Keith shakes his head side to side and clutches the egg a bit tighter. Lotor has the power to deduct fifty points from Gryffindor on the spot and drag him up to Coran’s office, if he cares to. Or even Headmaster Alfor, given that this is far from the first time he’s been caught out-of-bounds.

Instead, Lotor just nods to himself, clucks his tongue, and then approaches the door himself. He leans past Keith and mutters, “Pine fresh.” 

The bathroom door slides open, and through it Keith can see a massive and pristine bathroom that includes a deep, sunken tub with dozens of gleaming water faucets encircling it. On the wall is a stained glass mermaid, tail swishing as she beckons him in.

“Varkon will be around in an hour on his usual patrol,” Lotor says, giving Keith a warning look over his shoulder as he leaves. “I _strongly_ suggest you be elsewhere by the time he passes through.”

Still a little dumbfounded, all Keith can do is nod and be grateful. With the golden egg swaddled protectively close, he slips inside and bolts the door.

 

* * *

 

Keith stares down at the clue— eight lines in his hasty scrawl, a little smudged from bathwater— in frustration. The rhyming song tells him only this: he’ll have one hour to find and retrieve something he’ll ‘sorely miss,’ in a place where the egg’s chorus of voices can sound.

Underwater, obviously. It doesn’t take much contemplation to settle on the Black Lake: vast and deep and rife with mysterious creatures, Keith can think of nowhere better suited for a dangerous challenge.

Pidge, Hunk and Lance brainstorm for ideas to aid him, but nothing quite pans out. Human transmogrification isn’t taught until sixth-year and is far too complicated to learn in just over a month, especially with classes and Quidditch occupying his time.

Keith thinks he might stand a better shot learning the Bubble-Head Charm that Pidge finds in a seventh-year Charms textbook, but his attempts bear the same unfortunate hallmark that much of his spellwork does— too much power and too little control. The airbubble he conjures swells up three times the size of his head and pops unpredictably, never lasting anywhere close to a full hour.

Even worse, Keith’s spare time for tournament preparation further wanes as Gryffindor’s Quidditch match against Slytherin draws near.

They’ve only scrimmaged a few times this year, and it’s been an even give-and-take of wins and losses. Keith may be the fastest Seeker at Hogwarts, but no Chaser racks up scores like Shiro does, making each match against Slytherin a race to catch the Snitch before they accrue an insurmountable lead. Olia, the Gryffindor captain, calls for longer and harder practices to compensate, working them to weariness every other evening for three weeks leading up to the game.

But as Keith and the rest of the team take the field that fateful Saturday, he realizes it may not be enough.

Shiro looks good in green. Not that there’s a color in creation that could make him look bad, Keith figures, but the Slytherin Quidditch robes shimmer with the faint iridescence of reptilian scales, and Shiro wears them well. He cuts an imposing figure, and not just physically— there’s an air of easy confidence about him that makes Keith’s stomach flip like he’s pulling a barrel roll.

As the crowd roars, they take flight. Hunk nervously wrings the handle of his broom, murmuring desperate prayers, while Lance smack talks Rolo, one of the Slytherin Chasers.

The match begins and Keith circles high above both teams, scanning the air for the glimmering dart of the Golden Snitch. His gaze slips to Shiro, time and again, as he cuts down the field with Nyma and Rolo flanking him. There’s something about the way he flies that begs Keith to stare after him, breath netted in his chest as Shiro pulls off a daring feint and scores another goal. 

 _There._ A fleck of gold hundreds of meters distant. Keith can hear the whooping of the crowd as he drops into a nosedive, weaving and rolling past bludgers and other players as he descends; but as he snags the Snitch as rises back up above the stands, he’s surprised to hear a disappointed little sigh out of the crowd.

As the announcer’s voice rings out with the final score— and a Gryffindor victory— Keith realizes why: the entire match lasted all of ten minutes.

As the crowd filters its way back out of the stands, Keith touches down on the field and trots to the end of the loosely formed Gryffindor line. He high-fives the Slytherin players as they pass by, smiling at their grudgingly given praise for a well-played match; the last one he encounters is Shiro, trailing after his own team, too.

The Slytherin team captain smiles broadly as they face-off, and Keith is surprised to find his hand firmly clasped and held fast. “Exceptional seeking, Keith,” Shiro says as he draws Keith in and pats him on the shoulder, too.

“Th-thanks,” Keith stammers out, a whole new slew of adrenaline pouring into his veins. He misses the pressure of Shiro’s hand when he lets go and draws back a step. “You were great, too! As usual.”

The older boy hums closed-mouthed, accepting the little bit of praise with a smile. “Thanks, Keith. Damned short game, though. I’m sure your Keeper is happy for it.”

“Hunk?” Keith laughs, thinking of Hunk’s nervous pre-game sweats. “Yeah, he definitely is. It terrifies him when you charge the goal, you know.”

The admission makes Shiro smile, though he tries hard to look apologetic about it.

“Most Keepers aren’t fans of me,” he states, and not for nothing, either. Shiro’s arm can send the quaffle shooting clear across the pitch, hurtling hard and fast enough to be mistaken for a bludger, and woe to any unfortunate Keeper caught in its path.

“Can’t imagine why,” Keith says dryly. He dares a teasing little whap against Shiro’s bicep with the back of his hand. “How many of them have you knocked off their brooms? Didn’t you send Rax flying through the goal with the quaffle once?”

“Not _intentionally,_ ” Shiro laughs while wiping at the corner of his eye. “You know, Keith, as much as I hate losing… it’s not too awful if it’s against you.”

He’s already rounding up the other Slytherins before Keith can muster a response to that, gently prodding them with the bushy end of his broom as he calls out sloppy mistakes and praises their solid efforts. And as Keith is swept up by his own team, lifted high and carried back toward the castle and the Gryffindor common room to celebrate, his thoughts linger on Shiro's smile, his touch, and how much he'd like to be on the receiving end of both again soon.

 

* * *

 

It’s his own fault for not working harder to perfect his Bubble-Head Charm. Pidge tells him as much while she helps him sift through tomes in the library the day before the second trial.

“Keith, even if you find a different spell to use,” she sighs, “how are you going to learn it in one night?”

“I don’t know,” he groans miserably as he skims a volume on one-thousand-and-one water-based spells. He’s not even an exceptionally skilled swimmer, with or without a charm to help him breathe, and cold dread of setting foot in the lake is pooling in the pit of his stomach.

As evening descends, Pidge is summoned to Headmaster Alfor’s office. She fishes a chocolate frog and a pack of jelly slugs from her bag before she goes, setting them beside the stack of books on the table. “Get some rest soon, Keith. The absolute worst that can happen is you tank the trial, get no points, and somehow get tossed from the tournament. And I’m saying that to _comfort_ you,” she clarifies.

“I get it,” Keith replies, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. But the thought of failing so publically and spectacularly is no less miserable— especially with Shiro present— and he’s still wondering what might be taken from him that he’ll ‘sorely miss.’ His mother’s map, maybe. Or his broom, gifted to him by his godfather, Kolivan. He’d hate to lose either one forever.

Despite Pidge’s words, he keeps reading well into the night, past curfew, tucked away in a corner of the library. His mounting panic keeps him wide awake, frenzied as he turns pages, heedless of the passing hours.

But eventually he succumbs to exhaustion and slumber, because Keith’s next memory is blearily waking with a piece of parchment adhered to his face by dried drool. It takes a moment for his senses to return, and he jolts to realize that Lotor is standing beside the table, craning his head as he scans the many open books laid out around Keith.

“You’re going to be late,” the Head Boy murmurs, the calmness of his tone in stark contrast to the sudden wrench of Keith’s gut as he looks to the clock and sees the hands ticking well past nine o’clock.

“Gillyweed, hm? For the second task?” Lotor comments, one long finger tapping at a section of page spread before Keith. “Clever. Did you get permission to take a portion from the tank in the Herbology greenhouse?”

“The what?” Keith asks, skimming the text as he stands. _An aquatic plant that enables underwater breathing and enhanced swimming when ingested._ “Wait, that’s— that’s what I need,” he realizes.

It’s the answer to his dilemma delivered at the eleventh hour. Keith can only guess that he was so exhausted he must’ve fallen asleep right after turning the page, unaware he’d stumbled upon the perfect solution.

“Well, I hope you’re awfully fleet of foot,” Lotor says as he begins flipping the books shut and stacking them in a neat pile to be returned to their shelves. “If you hope to gather some before the task begins.”

Keith _is_ , fortunately. His many years of daily running pay off as he bolts from the library and down the corridors, not even slowing as he passes through the frigid form of one of the castle’s ghosts. The greenhouse is empty and unattended when he enters— Professor Ryner is likely already at the Black Lake for the tournament— and it’s easy enough to spy the tank of balled, wriggly-looking plants tucked beside a long work table.

Keith grabs one, nearly dropping the slippery mass of gillyweed four or five times as he goes to jam it in his pocket, and then sets out on the most direct course to the lake. The straight line path takes him dangerously close to the Whomping Willow, a few of its trailing branches whipping at him as he speeds by, but as the stands and platforms erected by the shore come into view, Keith feels a breath of relief.

He didn’t miss it. He’s not disqualified. Not yet, anyway.

Keith hears Lance long before he sees him. “It isn’t like Keith to be late! I’m worried, professor, and Pidge is missing too--”

“Lance, I promise I’ll— ah, Keith! There’s my favorite Muggle Studies student!” Coran sweeps him in and starts directing him toward another tent without even a moment to regain his breath. The professor leans in close and mutters, “I spent the last ten minutes stalling these quiznacking tournament officials. They’d been talking about disqualifying you before the other champions had even taken the stage! Now go, Keith. Hurry, hurry!”

He’s pushed up the stairs and onto a long wooden platform that extends over the edge of the lake. Sure enough, the other champions— except for Shiro— and their headmasters look rather disappointed to see him arrive. 

The late February air sears his lungs with chill, and Keith can scarcely hear the announcer of the laboring of his own breaths. He looks to where Shiro is lined up on the edge of the platform, perhaps four meters away: the older boy is far better prepared, wearing a dark, skin-tight wetsuit to protect against the frigid waters and stretching to keep warm and limber.

 _Shit._ All Keith can do is reluctantly strip off his robes and the clothes underneath, feeling the ruffle of cold air across his skin. He fishes the gillyweed and his wand from his pocket and holds them close, frozen from equal parts chill and the mortification of being in just his underwear in front of the whole school.

As the fire of a wand signals the beginning of their hour, Keith hastily shoves the gillyweed into his mouth and chews. It’s slimy and tentacle-like, but its effects come quick— as gills grow along the sides of his neck, Keith dives into the lake, trailing after the other champion.

It’s vast and dark, like the Black Lake’s name implies, and Keith loses sight of the others almost instantly. To his surprise, the water isn’t dreadfully cold. The gillyweed is fantastic, gifting him with webbed fingers and toes that help to speed him through the waters faster than he could have ever hoped to swim on his own. 

It’s eerie, though. A heavy silence bears down on him, but through the water Keith thinks he can sense the motion of something enormous looming far out of sight—

He thinks of the giant squid and moves faster, darting past wicked packs of grindylows that try to grab at his legs. It’s impossible to tell how much time has passed when he begins to hear voices— the same ones from the egg, a chorus of haunting song that beckons him to come find what’s been stolen from him before it’s lost forever. And in the center of what looks to be a merpeople village, Keith finally discovers what he’ll _sorely miss_. It’s Pidge, lashed to a statue, dead asleep with a thin trail of bubbles issuing from her mouth. And she isn’t alone: Allura sits beside her, her white hair billowed up like a phantom cloud; students from the other schools, Florona and Kinkade, are tied up as well.

Horror grips Keith by the heart and propels him forward before he can even wonder if the merpeople will attack him. He checks Pidge’s pulse first, desperate to make sure she’s unharmed, and then fruitlessly tugs at the ropes binding her. His wand proves less than effective underwater, and he frustratedly jams it back into his waistband.

A glimmer on the lake floor catches his eye, and Keith dives to grab a broken rock with a jagged edge. It’s not sharp enough, but it’s the best he can do. He saws at the rope frantically, cursing the thickness of the cord that’s wrapped around her six times over.

From the corner of his eye, Keith spots a figure emerging from the darkened waters. For a moment he fears it’s some new creature of the depths, another challenge to make this trial even more deadly—

But it’s Shiro. A sigh slips out of Keith, his gills fluttering. The Slytherin champion propels himself through the water with nothing but strong arms and legs, and Keith can’t imagine the endurance it would take to swim that long unaided by gillyweed. The pocket of air around Shiro’s head makes a pretty bubble— a perfect example of the charm Keith had failed to master— and like this, the older boy reminds him of an astronaut making first contact.

He waves to Keith as he draws near, eyes widening when he spies the gills and webbing between the younger boy’s fingers. Shiro allows himself a moment to touch Allura’s face in concern, fingers carding through the cloudy halo of her white hair, and then he sets to the task before him. Well-prepared as ever, Shiro draws a stout little dagger from a pouch strapped to one thigh and uses it to slice through the ropes binding Allura to the statue. He hooks one arm around her to hold her fast, and the other he extends to Keith, offering him the dagger hilt-first.

Keith takes it with gratitude, tossing the jagged stone he’d been using to saw at the ropes back to the lake floor. He flashes a little thumbs-up at Shiro, who returns it in kind before kicking his way upward, Allura safe in his arms.

The dagger makes short work of the ropes around Pidge, and Keith slips it into his waistband to return to Shiro later. As he gathers up Pidge, another champion approaches— it’s James, Keith guesses, halfway transformed into a shark. With the utmost care, he slides razorteeth across Kinkade’s bindings and cuts him free; he doesn’t even look back at Keith before pushing toward the surface.

And Keith ought to be gone by now. Their hour must be nearly up, but the girl from Beauxbatons is still tied fast to the statue with no rescue in sight. Keith stares at her where she lies unconscious, aware of the slow inching inward of the merpeople who have until now lurked in the shadows.

He can’t leave Florona like this. Keith gently releases Pidge, still slumbering, and darts in to saw at the ropes around Florona. Half a dozen merpeople approach at once, ordering him to leave her behind, but they slither back when he draws his wand. He’s doubtful he’ll be able to cast anything effectively underwater, but the threat is enough for the merpeople. Wary, they simply watch as Keith frees Florona and takes her with him, grabbing Pidge as he kicks his way upward.

Every movement makes his muscles burn. The feeling eventually works into his lungs, searing with every cold breath of water, and Keith realizes the gillyweed’s effects won’t last much longer. 

The last twenty meters to the surface is a fight. His calves scream and his chest aches, and as he rises from the water and draws his first true breath in at least an hour, Keith rejoices. On either side of him, Pidge and Florona take breath and begin to stir, and he’s immensely grateful when they begin to swim toward shore on their own. The crowd cheers, but as Shiro and the other champions help pull them up onto the stage, Keith’s heart sinks.

He’s the last one back. Obviously.

As he stands shivering under a blanket while the scores are announced, Keith can only think of how hard Lance is going to drag him. It’s a miracle he snags as many points as he does— just enough to tie him with Shiro going into the third task— and it’s only thanks to what the judges deemed a show of _moral fiber_.

Pidge calls it what it is. “Keith, you were being stupidly heroic. Did you honestly think Alfor would’ve left us there to drown?” 

He opens his mouth, then swiftly shuts it. No, obviously. It seems silly _now_ , but mired in the cold, lonely dark it had felt like the worst kind of cruelty to leave Florona at the bottom of the Black Lake. Plaxum had apparently been attacked by grindylows and forced to turn back early, but the merpeople would’ve brought Florona to the shore safe and sound at the end of the trial— Keith just hadn’t known any better.

“Very Gryffindor of you,” Shiro teases through chattering teeth. “I’m sorry, Keith. I’d have said something down there if I’d known you were worried about the others actually dying.”

“No, it’s fine,” Keith answers, embarrassed. Shiro’s concern is kind and sweet, but all it does is leave him burning with a full-body flush. Without meeting the older boy’s gaze, he fishes out the dagger and hands it back. “Thank you for letting me borrow this, by the way. I’d have been there sawing for another hour without you.”

“We Hogwarts champions have to stick together,” Shiro replies. “Except in the Quidditch Cup,” he immediately amends.

“No mercy on the pitch,” Keith agrees.

“None,” Shiro solemnly nods, a grin slipping through at the last second. After taking a swig of Madam Te-osh’s Pepperup Potion, he offers the cup to Keith and says, “Nothing personal, but that trophy belongs in the Slytherin common room.”

Where it had been for the last two years, for as long as Shiro had been team captain. A sip of the Pepperup Potion floods Keith with comforting heat, chasing out the lingering cold and anxiety from his time in the lake.  He playfully rolls his eyes as he falls into step with Shiro on the way down the stairs, toward the patch of grass where the rest of their friends stand waiting to return to the castle.

“We’ll see about that.”


	4. Chapter 4

Keith feels some kind of kindred spirit with Shiro at the dinner event that precedes the final task of the Triwizard Tournament. It’s a light affair, with the families of the champions all gathered to meet and mingle with the various headmasters, reporters, and ministry officials coming to watch the tournament’s end. And like Keith, Shiro has no family in attendance.

Shiro’s aunt, his only surviving relative, is bedridden and can’t make the trip, while Keith’s godfather is far too reclusive for a public event like this. (Kolivan had sent him a letter of encouragement some days before the final task, at least, brief but weighted with warmth and pride in how Keith had conducted himself.) It’s only natural that they gravitate toward each other while James and Plaxum’s families greet the headmasters and Minister Sanda, slinking to a corner to eat canapes together and discuss the highlights of Turkey’s match against Canada— anything to take their minds off of the task looming before them.

That all changes when Sam and Colleen Holt arrive, one of them in Gryffindor colors and the other decked in Slytherin green and silver. Alfor had reached out, apparently, and found the Holts were all too eager to come and show their support for their children’s friends.

The Holts swap the place cards arranged on the table so that Keith and Shiro can sit together, one Holt on either side. Mr. Holt settles down on Shiro’s left and immediately launches into a discussion on the Slytherin’s plans after graduation, offering to write him a recommendation letter for a position in the Ministry of Magic— if he hasn’t already been made an offer by a professional Quidditch team, that is.

Mrs. Holt sits at Keith’s right, all soft smiles as she thanks him for rescuing her daughter in the second trial. 

“She couldn’t stop talking about it over the spring holidays,” she says as she spears a massive hunk of roast lamb and deposits it onto Keith’s plate, along with generous servings of glazed carrots and spring vegetables. “The clue, the gillyweed, the mermaids, your performance! And it was very noble of you to worry about the Beauxbatons hostage, Keith. I’m so grateful that Katie has you as a friend.”

He takes a sip of water to buy time to think of what to say to that. “Um, thank you, ma’am.”

“And you too, Shiro.” Mrs. Holt raises her voice to snag the older boy’s attention from her husband; he turns, still chewing a cheek-puffing mouthful of macaroni. “Thank you for being such a good friend to Matt. I’m not sure where he’d be without you.” 

“In the headmaster’s good graces, probably,” Shiro says, lifting one of his shoulders in a shrug.

Behind him, Sam Holt snorts into his wine glass. Colleen’s mouth quirks to one side like she’s willing herself not to smile. “Highly doubtful. Honestly, Sam and I are just relieved you two are graduating without any more… _incidents._ ”

Keith’s eyebrows lift as he looks to Shiro, who meets his gaze for a split-second and very subtly shakes his head.

“Oh, Matt and Shiro used to drive Headmaster Alfor up the wall,” Mr. Holt helpfully explains, leaning around a groaning Shiro. “What was it you tried to do as fourth-years? See if your broom could break the sound barrier? Or was it the infamous glitter charm? By the way, Keith, this is why neither of them ever made prefect,” Sam adds in a stage whisper that reaches every corner of the table.

When Keith looks again to Shiro for answers, he finds the older boy beet-red and utterly focused on slicing his chicken into bite-sized pieces. He knocks his knee into Shiro’s leg under the table to get his attention, whispering low. “So, did you break the sound barrier?”

Shiro sets down his knife and fork before turning to Keith, a drawn silence as he contemplates how to answer. “Well… no. But after the broom literally disintegrated underneath me, I still had enough momentum to skip across the lake _four_ times,” he says, waving his hand to mime the bumpy motions. “Matt said it was four, anyway. I’d already blacked out.”

On Keith’s other side, Colleen sighs.

The dinner is followed by an hour of pictures and last minute interviews, and _finally_ they’re released to head down to the Quidditch pitch for the final task. It’s nearly dusk as the stands begin to fill with an eager audience of Hogwarts students, ministry officials, and the family and friends of the four champions.

The hedge maze that comprises the third task is nearly ten meters tall, grown across the Quidditch field in just a few months’ time. The labyrinth is crawling with all manner of dangerous creature and treacherous traps, and at the very center lies their prize, the Triwizard Cup, with the first to reach it crowned the victor.

Their earlier meal now sits like a rock in the pit of his stomach. With the Quidditch Cup concluded back in May and all their OWLs and NEWTs finished last week, there is nothing left but this: the third and final task, looming ominous just before him.

Sweat trickles down the back of Keith’s neck as they wait for the crowd to fill the stands and the signal to begin. Shiro stands off to his left, just within arm’s reach. Tied for first based on the points from the previous challenges, they’ll be sent into the maze together.

As Keith looks up at the massive wall of thorny green, he takes some comfort in that.

“Nervous?” Shiro asks. And from any other competitor— or any other Slytherin— Keith would’ve taken it as a dig.

“Yeah,” he quietly admits. 

“Me too.” Shiro tugs at his collar, then at the heavy drape of his green-lined robes. “You would not believe how much I’m sweating under here.”

Keith draws his sleeve across his forehead and grunts. “I’m about as wet as I was during the second task,” he complains, a pleased flutter easing the crushing weight in his stomach when Shiro softly laughs.

It’s a sound Keith’s grown to crave like spiced caramel and Kolivan’s cooking. He’s going to miss Shiro being at Hogwarts and glimpsing him in the halls with Allura, Lotor and Matt. He’s going to miss sharing moments like this with him, brought together by the demands of the Triwizard Tournament.

“Shiro…” The murmur of the crowd bleeds into the gap, filling the space where his words briefly run dry. “It’s been an honor competing with you.”

Shiro doesn’t tease, though he could and Keith wouldn’t fault him for it. He extends a hand for Keith to shake, his sweaty palm oddly reassuring. “Same, Keith. I hope you know how astounding you’ve been throughout. I have no doubt that as soon as I leave Hogwarts, you’re going to shatter every one of my records… and strange as it is, I really don’t mind.”

Keith’s cheeks warm at the praise, his tongue going sticky and heavy in his mouth.

“And even though I’m going to win tonight,” Shiro continues, the corner of his mouth curling in a little smirk, “I know you’re destined for great things.”

Keith hums and raises his eyebrows, unable to keep from returning the smile. “That attitude didn’t win you the Quidditch Cup, but hey— maybe you’ll get lucky this time.” 

Shiro actually _pouts_ at the reminder of Slytherin’s narrow loss to Gryffindor, nevermind the fact that scouts from _six_ different teams had been clamoring over his personal performance.

An official comes by and has them line up straighter, readying the champions for the start of the third trial. James shakes their hands, as does Plaxum. Shiro wishes each of them good luck and the other champions return it in kind.

“Patience yields focus,” Keith whispers to him as they take their mark side-by-side and wait for the loud bang of the announcer’s signal, satisfied when the words bring a knowing little smile to Shiro’s lips.

There’s a thundering crack through the air and they’re off into the maze’s entrance. A hush descends on them as soon as they enter the hedge, murky fog swirling around their ankles in grasping little coils. Keith swallows thickly. It’s impossible, but he wishes desperately that he and Shiro could conquer the maze together.

It seems natural to split up at the first fork, but they both hesitate to take their respective paths.

“You’ll be fine, Keith,” Shiro promises, giving Keith’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“You too,” he replies, laying his hand across Shiro’s forearm and squeezing back. “See you at the end.”

And then he’s alone, without even the sound of Shiro’s footsteps to keep him company.

Wand held at the ready, Keith turns corner after corner… and finds himself confronted by nothing at all. There are subsequent signals to let him know that James and Plaxum have entered the maze, but the deeper he advances, the more Keith feels as though he might as well be wandering the maze alone. It’s eerie, the silence as dense as the mist blanketing the ground. The lack of any foe to challenge him steadily ramps up the nervous tension that keeps his muscles taut and his eyes darting.

Further in, Keith eventually stumbles onto the signs of combat and struggle— burnt stretches of hedge, a stunned three-headed runespoor, and the broken remnants of binding charms meant to trap the unwary. He even sees a spray of red sparks against the night sky and knows that one champion is out of the running, though he has no idea who’s been disqualified.

The harsh pant of his own heavy breaths fills his ears as he continues on through the increasingly claustrophobic labyrinth. He slices through massive spider webs at one point, sticky threads strewn from hedge to hedge, and spends the next fifty winding meters looking warily over his shoulder for the creature that spun them.

When Keith stops to try and get his bearings, he catches the faint cries of someone pleading for help, the voice woefully small and distant. A trap, maybe, he thinks as he paces alongside the hedge, following the sound. But as he presses his ear to the nearest wall, his heartstrings seize— it sounds like it could be _Shiro_.  

Keith issues a billowing blast of heat from the tip of his wand and scorches a hole through the hedge. As he scrambles to clamber through it, the thorny branches are already regrowing quick enough to snag and rip at his robes; it’s a near thing, Keith almost getting swallowed up in the snaking surge of prickly hedge.

But it’s worth it. He was right. Just ahead of him is Shiro, mired knee-deep in cement-like quicksand spread across the maze’s path. His wand lies on the far side of the fog-obscured trap, utterly useless to him as he’s slowly engulfed.

“Keith,” he cries out, relief softening the worry written across his face. His shoulders droop. “Perfect timing.”

“Is it?” Keith asks as he edges closer, cautious of getting sucked in himself.

“My wand,” Shiro says weakly, gesturing across the long stretch of quicksand. “I can’t reach it to signal the staff to come and retrieve me. Could you?”

“But… you’d be disqualified.” 

Shiro suddenly sinks another few inches down, the liquid sand now swallowing him mid-thigh. “You know, I can live with that.” 

“ _Accio_ _wand,_ ” Keith says, catching the summoned wand by the engraved handle. He hands it to the older boy and says, “I trust you can get yourself out of there?”

Shiro gives him a wry look and murmurs his thanks. The spell he casts parts the quicksand around his legs like the Red Sea and he takes Keith’s outstretched hand, letting himself be pulled out.

Once on solid ground, Shiro stays bent double for a moment, breathing hard. “Thanks, Keith. I owe you.” 

Keith only smiles at him. When he tries to burn a hole through the thorny wall to return to his path, he’s surprised to find the hedge resistant. The flames of the spell scorch it black but fail to burn clean through, and the greenery blooms back quicker each time it’s attacked. 

“I think it adapts,” Shiro whispers. He looks to the shifting layer of sand stretched before them— the only way forward. “Can you make it across?”

“Uh…” By levitation, maybe, but once floating he’d have less control over his speed and direction than he’d like. “Maybe?”

“Here, just hold onto me,” Shiro says as he hooks an arm around Keith and pulls him flush against his side. He murmurs something under his breath and they’re both enveloped in a plume of black smoke, inky and smelling of the air after lightning strikes.

Keith blinks and they’re safely across, wisps of glimmering darkness fading into the air.

“You’re really good with that Fumosmotus spell,” Keith praises as he looks behind them, where the quicksand puddle is rapidly covering itself with an illusion of grass and solid ground, convincing under the haze of fog. “That’s really high level teleportation magic, isn’t it?”

The comment has Shiro subtly preening. “It got me top marks on my NEWTs.”

Keith glances down and realizes they’re still squeezed together, Shiro’s hand firm on the small of his back and his own arm hurriedly thrown around the older boy’s neck to hold tight. His blush deepens, scorching his cheeks something fierce, and they stumble apart at the same moment of realization. 

Shiro wipes his hands on his black robes and surveys the many-forked path ahead. “We should… split up again, huh?”

Reluctantly, Keith nods. “I think we’re close to the center, though. It shouldn’t be much longer.”

They part ways and Keith hates it even more than the last time. He moves through the maze at a brisk jog, once again wary and confused by the lack of obstacles placed in his path. Periodically, he fires off Stupefy spells just to see if there might be a trap ahead to trigger, but nothing ever springs at him.

It’s intentional, maybe, to lower his defenses. As Keith reaches a winding juncture, he feels more certain than ever that he is near the end of the maze. And it’s only then that a massive, car-sized spider crawls down to block his path.

It’s dark and furred, fangs dripping with what he _hopes_ is just saliva as it rears back, its eight shining black eyes trained on him. As the spider charges toward him, Keith stands his ground and fires off one spell after another— a conflagration that barely seems to stun it, a Stupefy that glances off of its tough, hairy hide, an immobilization spell that only slows the enormous beast for a heartbeat.

At the last second, he’s forced to throw himself to the ground and roll aside, scrambling to avoid the stabbing of its pointed legs and the gnashing of those scissor-like jaws. It looms close, and in desperation Keith aims a kick square in the spider’s face, right among its many eyes.

It shrieks and repays him with a pincered bite just below his knee, jaws crushing tight enough to pierce his skin and send hot blood coursing down his leg, soaking into the fabric of his pants. He points his wand up and aims again at its head, shooting a jet of flame forth to force it to release him.

It works, mercifully, and it’s at that moment a pointed and forceful gust of wind sends the giant spider reeling up on one row of legs, its pincers snapping wildly. Keith takes the opportunity to aim a Stupefy right at its exposed underside— it hits, along with a second Stupefy that he recognizes as belonging to Shiro. Combined, their magic accomplishes what Keith couldn’t alone. The massive spider keels to one side before crumpling, its long legs bent pitifully inward.

Keith takes a few moments to catch his breath, still sprawled on the grass. He fiddles with his wand, thinking of the ministry official who’d told them to send up a spray of red sparks if they got hurt or ran into trouble that required rescue.

“Don’t,” Shiro says, eyeing him. The Slytherin kneels at his side and carefully peels back the ragged cloth surrounding Keith’s injured leg. With a murmur, he performs a healing spell that eases the pain and slows the run of blood, Keith’s skin tingling as it knits back together.

“Is this okay?” Keith asks. It seems like bending the bounds of a competition meant to crown a victor based on individual performance… but it isn’t as though the first time they’ve come to each other’s aid, either.

“I know Slytherins have a reputation,” Shiro says as he carefully rolls the remains of Keith’s pantleg back into place and performs a quick mending spell on the tattered fabric. “But I’m not… I’m not going to leave people I care about bleeding by the wayside to win.”

“You deserve to, though,” Keith says as Shiro combs the hair out of his face and helps him to stand, cautioning that healing is far from his specialty. His leg burns and aches when he rests his weight on it.

“I’d never have gotten this far without your help,” Shiro counters as he wraps an arm around Keith and takes a few testing steps forward. “You deserve to win just as much, if not more.”

“Shiro, I can barely walk like this,” Keith sighs. The older boy is more or less carrying him anyway, his feet barely brushing the grass. “Leave me. You go.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Shiro stubbornly insists. “You were right about being close, Keith. You’re close enough to make it there.”

Sure enough, through the hedges ahead Keith can see the brilliant gleam of a stone pedestal and a dark silver trophy that seems to be lit from within its frosted-glass cup. As they stagger closer, Keith finds his footing and starts pulling his weight, despite the sting emanating from his calf.

They’ve found the center of the maze, the Triwizard Cup, the end of this yearlong endeavor together. It’s like a weight’s been slipped from Keith’s shoulders, a yoke he hadn’t even realized he was bearing.

There’s longing in Shiro’s eyes as he looks upon the trophy, but he swallows deep and turns back to Keith instead. “I meant it, Keith,” he says, and the arm wound around the Gryffindor’s waist tightens, fingers curling lightly into his side. “I think you ought to win.”

Keith leans on Shiro’s strength, and even sore and battered he can afford to appreciate how nice it is to be held by the older boy. “Neither of us would be here without the other.”

Shiro hums and tilts his head, agreeing with that sentiment.

“We could win it together,” Keith suggests. At the interested little quirk of Shiro’s eyebrow, he adds, “It’d still be a Hogwarts victory.”

Shiro smiles and hoists him closer, draping one of Keith’s arms around his wide shoulders as he helps Keith hobble the last few meters toward the pedestal. “The tournament is meant to bring the school together, right? I can’t see Hogwarts being any more united than behind the _both_ of us as victors. I suppose Slytherin and Gryffindor can have joint-custody of the trophy… we’ll have to do all of our interviews together, which is a plus… and we can split the winnings right down the middle.”

“The winnings?” Keith asks, his jaw dropping. “There are winnings?”

“Holy hell,” Shiro snorts, head turned toward Keith so that his breath ruffles the younger boy’s hair. “Yes! A _thousand_ Galleons, Keith. I swear, it’s like someone else put your name in the Goblet of Fire—”

“ _They did!”_ Keith registers his sarcastic tone a moment too late, huffing out a tired laugh. “Oh. Well, I’m glad you find the biggest mystery of my fifth year amusing.”

“Only a little bit,” Shiro teases as they come to stand just inches from the trophy.

“At the same time?” Keith suggests, reaching out to let his hand hover over the curve of one metal handle shaped like the coil of a dragon’s serpentine neck. It’s ancient and roughly shaped, covered in runes.

Shiro answers with a smile, his own hand outstretched toward the other handle, and starts counting down. “Three… two… _one_.”

It’s the sudden lurch that rips the air from Keith’s lungs and blacks out the edges of his vision, his body entirely unprepared for the sensation of being blindly whisked through space. Through watering eyes, he glimpses Shiro trapped in the same vortex of teleportation.

A portkey. _A portkey._ Why would the trophy be a portkey?

It drops them somewhere untold miles from the bright lights of the Quidditch pitch and the screaming crowd— somewhere dark and mist-strewn and empty. As they hit the ground with a thud, the Triwizard Cup tumbles away, rolling downhill until it hits a carven tombstone and clatters to a standstill.

A graveyard.

“Is this part of the task?” Shiro asks beside him, wary as he pushes himself up onto his knees, and all Keith can think is _no._

There isn’t one bit of this that feels right— least of all the shrouded body laid upon a risen stone grave like it’s an altar, flanked on either side by two massive and masked figures. 

Shiro must catch sight of them at the same moment Keith does; his hands suddenly fist tight in the younger boy’s robes as he hauls him to his feet, steadying Keith when he wobbles on his injured leg.

“The portkey,” Shiro whispers as he turns his head to look for the pewter trophy, lying woefully far down the slope behind them. “Keith, run.”

“I’m not leaving,” he hisses back, burying his hands in the green-lined fabric of Shiro’s robes and his grass-stained shirt.

“No,” one of the masked figures says from the grave-marked hill ahead, the objection lazy with confidence. He takes a step forward, edging around the makeshift altar, fog stirring around the dragging hem of wine-red robes. “You certainly aren’t.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the calm before the storm y'all
> 
>  
> 
> Lighter stuff tho! 
> 
> Shiro hitting the lake at stone-skipping speed and being gently pushed back to shore by the giant squid was the absolute peak of his dumb!reckless stage. He and Matt became more responsible risk-takers afterward— thanks in part to a stern tag-team lecture from Allura and Lotor as he laid in the hospital wing. Shiro channeled his thrill-seeking into mastering aerial stunts useful for Quidditch while Matt got deep into experimental magical theory.
> 
> The glitter charm was actually Lotor’s idea (meant as a present for Allura at the height of her love for all things sparkly) but Shiro and Matt were more than happy to take the fall for their friend when it went horribly awry. A misfire led to every inch of the Slytherin common room getting a dusting of pink and blue glitter so potent that even Alfor couldn’t remove the charm; it took almost a month to fade and Allura loved every day of it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up breaking this into two chapters! There's a wall of extraneous backstory at the bottom too if that's your thing.

Neither Keith nor Shiro can make another step before the taller of the two cloaked figures lifts his chin and utters one command. “Sendak.”

The other man— a hulking mountain of muscle, his mask bearing a menacing snarl— lifts one burly arm and takes aim. He’s too far away for Keith to hear, but he can see the signs of Sendak’s spell taking hold; beside him, Shiro makes a strangled sound and stiffens tight, every muscle going rigid before relaxing just as abruptly.

A chill snakes its way down Keith’s spine, raising every hair along the way. “Shiro?”

No response. Not a flinch. Not even a look.

“Shiro?” Keith tries again, hand held just shy of touching the other boy’s shoulder. 

Shiro is impassive as he slowly turns and stares down at Keith, eyes aglow with some dreamy sort of malevolence. With one word— his voice gone deep, rough, and unsettlingly flat— the yew wand in his hand blooms white-hot, like a branding iron drawn from the heart of a star. His other hand seizes viselike around Keith’s bicep and wrenches him close.

“Shiro, please,” Keith chokes out, his fingers curling around the older boy’s wrist. “Don't do this. You _know_ me.” 

His heels drag as Shiro begins to move them toward the altar and its waiting attendants, but the pull is too strong to resist. Keith still fights every step of the way, forcing Shiro to tug him along in lurching increments, all desperation as he claws at his friend’s unyielding hold and begs him to stop.

“Fight this, Shiro! _Please_. This isn’t you. I know you, Shiro.” Keith has no idea how to break an Imperius Curse, but he lifts his wand to try anyway.

But Shiro, still under the spell, intercedes on Sendak’s behalf first. He brings his wand high, hovering dangerously close to the Gryffindor’s face, the vivid and unnatural heat pouring off of it a sharp warning.

One flick of Shiro’s wrist could blind him, maim him. Aimed a little lower, it could _end_ him. Keith’s skin prickles with sweat.

“Yield and drop your wand,” he orders, voice still devoid of all things Shiro.

Keith’s eyes flutter against the wilting heat and his fingers curl tighter around the engraved blackthorn handle of the wand Kolivan gave him. “Shiro, please. I—”

“Give in,” Shiro commands again, and this time he lays the white-hot brand of his yew wand into Keith’s skin.

It sears a line from jaw to the top of his cheekbone, so scorching and bright that Keith squeezes his eyes shut for fear of being blinded. He can feel his skin blister and burn, can smell it singe. As a strangled cry escapes him, Keith’s hand spasms and his wand tumbles free, lost amid the graveyard grasses in the moonlit dark. 

A time later— Keith doesn’t know when— the light fades.

The pain doesn’t. The whole right side of his face throbs in agony, the fire settling deep under his skin, and a childhood of treating burns tells Keith this one will be lasting.

Shiro yanks him onward, moving inexorably to their fate at the burial vault-turned-altar, where the masked wizards wait with the languid patience of men accustomed to unquestioned control and obedience.

“Shiro, please,” Keith tries anew, though every movement of his jaw makes the pain flare bright enough to turn his vision faint and spotty. “Please… I know you can fight this. Shiro, I need you! Shiro. _Shiro_ —”

The sudden stop throws Keith off-balance, and all that keeps him from stumbling to his knees is the iron-solid hold around his arm.

Shiro trembles, breaths coming in stuttering little bursts, the tightening of his jaw a painfully visible thing; the glow of his wand flickers and fades as he shudders, wavering with exhaustion from the effort of throwing off the Imperius Curse, and then his grip on Keith suddenly goes slack. He blinks wearily, dry lips just parting to speak, and horror dawns behind his eyes when he sees the fresh burn across the younger boy’s face.

“Stronger willed than most,” one of the dark wizards comments, his gravelly voice carrying. A note of admiration weaves into his condescending tone, as though Shiro is merely a curiosity worth passing notice. “But still… useless.”

“Who are you?” Shiro manages, his expression a war of anger, confusion, and fright. Though he’s fatigued, he stretches out an arm in front of Keith and takes a shaky step in front of him; he raises his wand warily at Sendak, the wizard who’d cursed him. “Why have you brought us here?”

Before an answer can come, there’s the sudden crack of an apparition nearby, the sound as sharp and sudden as a whip. For a moment, Keith’s heart soars with the hope that it’s rescue— Headmaster Alfor come to protect them or an auror catching up to their malevolent prey. In desperation, he childishly hopes it might even be Kolivan.

But it’s nothing and no one, as far as he can see. Until the air shimmers, at least, and the hood of an invisible cloak falls away to reveal Lotor.

Keith gapes to see him here, arrived by his own choice, hollow-eyed and sullen and his shoulders set in a defensive hunch.

Lotor pays Keith no mind, though. He has only eyes for Shiro, his friend and fellow Slytherin. He manages one staggering step, the invisibility cloak slipping from his shoulders to the ground behind him, utterly forgotten; his long face is painted first with shock, then twists to some panicked agony.

“Shiro… you’re not supposed to be here.” It’s barely a whisper, a strangled thought that’s loosed alongside a flood of emotion. 

“You… put my name in,” Keith realizes, gaze darting from Lotor to the pair of dark wizards. His heart twists as he remembers Lotor giving him a free pass into the prefect’s bathroom and feeding him the information about the gillyweed, and the unsettling awareness of having been played is second only to an ever-worsening dread. “You’re why I ended up in the tournament. You _helped_ me.” 

Shiro stiffens and shakes his head, jaw dropped, his empty hand curled in a considerable fist. 

“You were in the maze with your invisibility cloak, weren’t you?” Shiro asks, disbelief warring with blatant hurt and betrayal. “I kept thinking I heard— was that quicksand your charmwork? It _was_. You trapped me—” 

“I was trying to keep you safe, Shiro! Out of harm’s way,” Lotor says, almost pleading as he glances up the hill toward the masked men, takes a deep breath, and then looks on Keith for the very first time. “He was the only one who— it was meant for him alone—”

“Keith?” Shiro’s fury is as physical as everything else about him, reading in the tense rise of his shoulders as he shifts to protect Keith from _three_ probable assailants. “You put him through this for— for what? To kill him?”

“Shiro, you don’t understand—”

“I understand well enough what dark magic looks like,” Shiro counters, angry and heartbroken. He casts a look back at the masked men at the foreboding makeshift altar, at those dark wizards waiting on some ritual, ancient and evil enough to be felt even from here. “You thought… you could _use_ Keith?”

“I had no choice, Shiro,” his friend says, jaw trembling until he sets it with a tooth-grinding clench. “My father, he— I _had_ to. She’s my mother _,_ Shiro.”

All Shiro can do is shake his head, horrified, and blindly reach to usher Keith— unarmed and injured— even further behind him. 

Lotor appeals to Sendak and the other masked man instead, his voice hardened and brittle. “Leave him for me to deal with.” As if sensing their unwillingness, he adds, “Lord Zarkon, please. I beg you.”

Shiro remains a full-body shield, unwilling to accept any bargain that spares him in exchange for Keith. Even at a pleading tilt of Lotor’s head, he refuses to consider the idea. “No... Lotor, I’m not letting anything happen to him.”

Lord Zarkon folds his hands behind his back, watching them through the shadowed eye slits of his mask. “Sendak.”

At that, his second-in-command’s ominously glowing orange eye spins wildly before fixing on Shiro. Sendak rolls his thick shoulders and again raises his wand in his master’s stead.

“Keith, run!” Shiro shouts as he hastily draws up invisible walls to shield them. “Take the portkey!”

But he can’t without Shiro, who is bearing the burden of protecting them both, his breaths labored as he deflects spell after spell from Sendak. He can’t go, but neither can he be of any use without his wand. Desperate, Keith ignores his aching leg and hurries toward the patch of graveyard where he’d dropped it.

He’s only just laid eyes on the blackthorn’s dark gleam when a concussive blast from Sendak and Shiro’s fight catches him at just the wrong angle. It sends him flying, briefly blacking out as he’s hurtled limply through the air.

Keith slams to a stop as his back collides with a tombstone hard enough to bruise the bone, his head falling back as he gasps in a breath to replace the air knocked from his lungs. Through swimming vision, he sees the crimson swirl of a cloak— Zarkon’s cloak— approaching. Blurred by pain-induced tears, he sees blasts that shatter tombstones and tear the hallowed earth asunder. 

And he sees the wicked darkness that pours from Sendak’s wand and seizes on Shiro like the coil of a strangling serpent.

Ribbons of neon magenta-streaked void magic work around his wand-arm, consuming as they go. The sound he makes is wracked with untold pain and mortal terror— fingers, hand, wrist to elbow, it’s all taken. No matter how desperately Shiro wheels back or tries to flee, the tendrils give chase, eager to devour him whole.

Its creeping advance ceases only when Lotor levels a vicious spell at Sendak, forcing the wizard to break his concentration; the darkness subsides just as it reaches Shiro’s shoulder, but it’s far too late for the rest of his arm. He falls where he stands, surrounded by strewn stone and rolling side-to-side as he clutches at the bare joint of his shoulder.

If Keith had his wand— if he wasn’t winded and at the mercy of the cloaked figure looming above him—

“What a pitiful mess,” is all Zarkon says as he stoops to wrap a strong hand around Keith’s throat and heave him up to the very tips of his toes, forcing him to fight for air. Far behind him, Lotor and Sendak duel, lighting up the graveyard with crackling streaks of gold and wicked violet.

Keith’s nails scratch futilely at the leather gloves that wrap Zarkon’s hands, his blood seething with a fury that bathes his vision dark and red. Throat crushed under the dark wizard’s clenched fist, it’s laborious to breathe, to swallow; it’s even harder to utter a single word, but the acrid hate that pools on his tongue demands a voice. 

_“I’ll kill you.”_

Zarkon only smiles at the threat. “Spoken like a true Galra.” 

He is bodily hauled to the stone vault where the shrouded body lies. Zarkon has no concern for anything else in the graveyard at the moment— not even the all-out battle raging between his own son and his loyal second-in-command.

Zarkon releases Keith unceremoniously, letting him stumble and desperately grasp onto the stone to stay upright. He doesn’t bother with restraints, and it’s disheartening for Keith to realize the effort is unnecessary— his leg is still weak from the spider bite, his body throttled from being thrown and choked, his head light from the pain of the burn sunken into his skin. He’s wandless, too. Vulnerable. Defenseless. 

Zarkon knows it. His attention is centered on the body on the altar as he gently peels back a dark veil, revealing a woman with skin the same shade as Lotor’s, her hair just as pale, her face and body gone withered and frail.

 _His mother_ , Lotor had said. She looks like death.

“Honerva,” Zarkon whispers, soft and reverent, a single curled finger tracing its way fondly down the sunken curve of her cheek.

The tenderness of it makes Keith’s stomach turn, and again he feels that sense that nothing here is right— even looking at the woman on the slab of stone fills him with a sense of the unnatural, something here indescribably wrong.

“Why me?” Keith asks as Zarkon draws his wand, a dagger, and an unassuming box of black wood. It’s the silvery blade that catches his attention and holds it; he puzzles over the glowing symbol on its hilt, brow furrowing deeper the longer he stares at it. 

“Why put my name in the Goblet at all? Why not Sh—” Keith can’t say his name without sickening worry clenching the cords of his throat. “Why me?”

Zarkon doesn’t answer right away. With care, he opens the wooden box and extracts a gem from its velvet-cushioned interior; it’s a sickly void-black that gleams with hunger, reminding Keith viscerally of the curse that took Shiro’s arm. 

“Because you and I are connected,” Zarkon explains, “by a distant ancestor renowned for the power of his magic and his creations. He forged this Komar stone and attuned it to our bloodline, and with it I can siphon the quintessence from a worthy descendant of Galra.”

A tidal wave of unease rolls through Keith. “Worthy?” 

“Purified by combat,” Zarkon rumbles. “A victor. A _champion_.”

It’s mocking, the way he says it, and Keith’s gut spins to think of how much of the past year was contrived just for this: his name in the Goblet of Fire, the little nudges to ensure he stayed competitive, Lotor’s interference in the maze, his victory and Shiro’s suffering.

All for his blood and spirit to be up to par for a dark ritual.

“I did, in my haste to save my wife, previously fail to follow the ritual to the letter,” the dark wizard sighs as he grips tight around Keith’s wrist and yanks him close, delicate bones grinding together under the pressure. “Unicorn blood was not enough, so I hunted other wizards with Galra blood. But they were too weak to sustain her— the ritual demands a proven champion, strong of heart, as a sacrifice.”

“You could’ve let Shiro go,” Keith hisses, fist clenching.

“If you seek to blame someone for your misfortune, throw it at Alfor’s feet,” Zarkon sneers, the words dripping with a personal grudge. “If he hadn’t destroyed the philosopher’s stone he created, I wouldn’t have been driven to this.”

Keith winces as the grip around his wrist tightens, Zarkon squeezing until his closed fist reluctantly opens.

“Come now,” Zarkon chides as he draws that strange blade across his palm, terribly slow and purposeful. Blood begins to well along its edge, too bright for the graveyard’s moonlit darkness. 

“Ah, do you recognize this?” the dark wizard asks, turning the knife so that it glints as he twists the blade into the flesh of Keith’s palm, tearing a cry from the teenager. “It belonged to your mother. She is the reason my Honerva is in this wretched state. It is fitting that her blood— _your_ blood— will help revive her.”

There is a flood of red along Keith's heartline, his lifeline, pooling until enough gathers to drip down the sides of his hand. “M-my mother?”

His mother, who’d left when he was so small that Keith wasn’t sure if he had a single childhood memory of her that wasn’t just cobbled together out of stories from his father.

Zarkon’s fingers dig hard into Keith’s already-bruised flesh. “She and the rest of the Blade of Marmora… they would have killed her,” he says mournfully, laying aside the bloodied dagger to stroke his wife’s hair.

Keith stares at the blade and wonders if he’d seen it as a child. Wonders if his mother never left, as he’d assumed when his father always edged uncomfortably around the topic of why she wasn’t home with them, but had instead been slain by the masked man standing before him. Lotor’s father. Lord Zarkon. 

“At any rate, I am done relying upon half-measures and half-wit sons,” he mutters, dark gaze shooting past Keith and ostensibly settling on Lotor while he fights to hold Sendak at bay. “Your quintessence will restore my wife to her former glory and our business will be done.”

Whether or not the ritual actually achieves Zarkon’s desired results, Keith doubts he’ll live to know.

Zarkon presses the black gemstone— the Komar— into Keith’s bloodied palm and forces his fingers to curl around it. The stone is strangely heavy, dense in a way that makes Keith think of collapsed stars and dark matter, its presence in the palm of his hand a strain felt through his whole body. As Zarkon strips off his gloves and wraps his bare, scaly-skinned hand around Keith’s curled fist, the black stone seems to draw a breath of anticipation. As if it knows the ritual is beginning and is _eager_ to take part.

It’s an incantation in a language Keith doesn’t even recognize, so old it’s perhaps been forgotten to the world at large, but Zarkon knows it by heart. His voice and hands are steady even as Keith begins to squirm at the growing sensation of something pulling at the very threads of his being, hungry to take him apart.

Keith’s heart stutters more than once as the Komar leaches his warmth out and funnels it into Honerva through the conduit of Zarkon’s touch— a large, almost-clawed hand laid over her heart. It’s Keith’s quintessence being stolen. His _life_ , bit by bit, ripped out of him slow and inexorable, and he imagines himself withering into a dry husk while Honerva grows youthful and hale at his cost.

The Komar’s greedy sapping goes from hair-raisingly uncomfortable to outright painful, Keith writhing as his body protests the loss of life-giving quintessence. It’s too much, every moment worse than the one that preceded it, and a growing sense of doom warns he hasn’t much time left.

Keith inhales sharp and startled when Honerva’s eyes suddenly fly open, unblinking, and her chest rises with a full breath. Zarkon gasps too, though the emotion behind his is entirely different.

 “My love,” he murmurs as she awakens, overcome as the ritual proves successful. Though she is still sunken, her cheeks hollowed and her eyes hooded with shadow, she no longer rests with all but one finger in the grave.

And Keith feels weak. Cold. The draw of the Komar scorches like ice along his veins, crystal shards digging into his flesh, but he focuses and finds a moment of clarity amid the pain and swirling haze of despondent thoughts. The dagger lays within reach, its edge still dripping blood. And Zarkon’s wand is just a bit further, carefully arranged atop the intricately painted symbols on the stone vault’s lid; both weapons lay forgotten in the midst of the wizard’s distraction over Honerva.

Gritting his teeth, Keith lunges for the wand, too worried he’ll lack the physical strength to do any debilitating damage with the dagger. It’s not his own familiar blackthorn and dragon heartstrings, but Zarkon’s wand responds with enthusiasm, its power awakening zealously under his touch. And for once, the problems that had often earned Keith poor marks in his Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons seem to work in his favor.

The conflagration spell erupts quicker than he’d anticipated, taking him and Zarkon both by surprise. It bursts violently and at close range, filled with every bit of unruly power Keith had been able to channel into it. The force of the explosion hits Zarkon point-blank as he turns to shield Honerva from the blast; he’s punched into the air, dark mask cracked and cloak ablaze, and lands atop the ornately sculpted stone of a gravemarker with a resounding crack of bone.

Keith stumbles backward, the sheer power of the spell too much for his unsteady legs. He holds the Komar tight in his bloody fist, determined not to let it fall back into Zarkon’s hands. Wobbling, he grabs up the dagger where it skittered to the ground by his feet, and as he rises—

He sees Honerva, freshly risen too, as at ease among the graveyard’s many tombstones as a banshee queen might be.

She stares him down like he’s a pestilence, but one beneath her attention. Her expression is shrewd, her eyes a hundred times keener and more wicked than Zarkon’s, and Keith has a sinking feeling that of the two of them, Honerva is far more dangerous.

“It would certainly be a pity for you to let your friend die without so much as a goodbye,” she says without a shred of sympathy. But the blatant calculation still makes Keith’s heart clench as he chances a look back at Shiro— sprawled where he’d fallen and dreadfully, unmistakably still.

His heart resumes beating with a lurch that clubs his sternum, the ache more severe than even the life-draining Komar had been. Perhaps Honervas still weak, he thinks, if she’s trying to distract him so. But it works. Keith takes a shaky step back toward Shiro, and then another, never breaking the locked stare he shares with the witch. It feels as though her glowing, golden gaze can look right through him and take him apart; he’ll see those eyes in his dreams, his nightmares, in the darkness as the tries to fall asleep.

He notices too late as Sendak approaches Honerva’s side, an unconscious Lotor slung over his broad shoulder; the wizard dutifully obeys as she orders him to attend Lord Zarkon next.

“Lotor!” Keith opens his mouth to— to do what? He isn’t sure, except that he can’t just leave Lotor to the mercy of wizards dark enough to harvest others’ lives.

Keith levels Zarkon’s wand at Sendak, searching for a way to strike him without harming Lotor, but Honerva intervenes before he can find an opening. With just a gesture, she is able to summon Zarkon’s wand right out of Keith’s hand; her bony fingers curl tight around its handle, as if weighing its power.

And again, Keith is left defenseless. 

Honerva’s wandless magic must take a great deal out of her, though, because she wavers where she stands, a spindly hand outstretched to brace herself on a nearby carven angel. Sendak, now burdened with two unresponsive bodies, draws close to her for a sidelong apparition; all four of them vanish before Keith’s eyes with a sharp, thunder-like crack, and then the graveyard stands empty.

Except for him and Shiro. 

Keith hurriedly hobbles down the hillside, heedless of his wounds as he weaves between shattered headstones, until he reaches the stretch of bare grass where Shiro lies.

On his knees, he hunts for some sign of life. He touches his blood-tacky fingers to Shiro’s throat to feel for a pulse. His hand hovers over his mouth hoping for the telltale huff of his breath. He presses his ear to Shiro’s chest to listen for even the faintest beat. Even if Keith had his wand— if he even knew where to begin looking for it in the rubble-strewn graveyard— the meager mending spells he knows wouldn’t be nearly enough.

“Shiro, please,” Keith cries, hopeless. He curls his bloodied hand into the front of the older boy’s robes and wrenches tight, as if shaking Shiro might be able to wake him— like he’ll drowsily blink his eyes open and murmur Keith’s name, only passed out from the pain. 

But Shiro’s head limply rolls to one side, skin bloodless and unnaturally pale. An ominous darkness lies in inky streaks under the skin surrounding his shoulder— lingering taint from Sendak’s curse. He doesn’t hear Keith; he doesn’t stir.

“Shiro…” Keith says wearily. He cups Shiro’s face and drags the pad of his thumb longingly over the slope of his cheek, leaving a broken smear of blood across rapidly cooling skin. 

Under the splay of his hand across Shiro’s chest, Keith can feel the warmth of the Komar stone— forgotten for a time— as it awakens again, alive in ways that Shiro is not. But it's different now: warmer and gentler, even if still of a mind to coax his quintessence out of him. It’s a hungry ember rather than a void, seeking a spark to stoke it.

Keith leans into the feeling, testing it. The Komar responds, awake and eager, but its siphon doesn’t sting of violation like it had when Zarkon forced him to use it. The image that Keith gets now— the shape inside of his mind, so vivid it nearly feels real— is of a goblet running over, pouring out silky red flames that chase away the dark. He envisions fire that heals instead of harms, that purifies the dead and kindles life where it’s been lost; the kind that allows phoenixes to be reborn.

As he presses firmer against Shiro and closes his eyes, Keith feels his quintessence wash through the other boy. Not lost, not taken— it’s more of one candle igniting another, a spark of life meant to be freely given.

Under his hand, something stirs. Keith opens his eyes in time to see the last of Shiro’s hair turn color, the familiar black fading to a soft, moontouched silver.

And then there’s a gasp, a convulsion like a full-body spasm, and Shiro’s eyes open. His heavy lashes flutter as his gaze darts desperately for something or someone familiar, in dire need of comfort.

“Keith?” he asks, the name barely more than a breath, fragile and lost.

“I’m here, Shiro,” he hurries to reassure, cupping a hand along the side of the older boy’s face until he calms, thumb stroking back and forth. “Are you… okay?”

“I think so,” Shiro murmurs, the corner of his mouth twitching at the question. He turns his face into Keith’s hand, finding solace in the touch. “I was watching, kind of. From outside my body,” he says, a shudder quaking him. “Drifting in stars. But I could see you, Keith. I watched you bring me back. Keith… you saved me.”

“We saved each other,” Keith tells him, thinking of Shiro’s willingness to stand and fight so that Keith might escape. He cards his rust-coated fingers through pale and otherworldly hair, flakes of dried blood peppering the strands with every pass. They’re both a mess, but they’re okay.

“And now we’re going home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Miscellaneous notes:**  
>  I had a really hard time choosing the wood for Keith’s wand! I also like holly, cypress, and elder for him. IDK if this “works” in HP-verse but I’d like to say that he initially started out with a holly wand (which broke) and received his blackthorn one from Kolivan after they met for the first time since Keith was still small.
> 
> The Komar is a blend of the komar Haggar uses in VLD and the soul stone of HP. It’s more for extending life/increasing power than it is for bringing back the dead— Shiro being revived was a bit of a lucky fluke + perfect timing + Keith’s (100% VLD canon) inherent magical ability to make Shiro fight his way back from the brink of death lmao. And though the Komar stone was created with very dark, malicious purposes in mind, it’s a bit like the sorting hat (unless I’m remembering this wrong!) in that choice and intent matter. Keith’s will was to use it for good, out of love for Shiro, and he was prepared to sacrifice himself to that end. It was the first time the Komar was exposed to quintessence freely given rather than forcibly taken, and Keith’s raw power and single-minded intent to save his friend were enough to use it in an entirely new way.
> 
>  **Zarkon, Honerva, and the Blade of Marmora**  
>  Zarkon and Honerva, schoolmates and friends of Alfor decades past, weren’t always dark and twisted. Academic curiosity compelled Honerva to explore darker and darker magics, and Zarkon’s love for her ensured his continued support of her research. In their quest for knowledge, power, and immortality, they ultimately created horcruxes— one apiece— as a failsafe. As they quietly plagued the wizarding and muggle communities alike, aided by a handful of dedicated followers like Sendak, they maintained their public reputations as proper— if reclusive— wizards of means.
> 
> None suspected that the pair donned masks and terrorized innocent people in the dark of night— none except for the Blade of Marmora. An ancient and shadowy order sworn to combat the rise of dark magic by any means necessary, and Blades work to end threats to wizarding and humankind wherever the established law can’t/won’t. Kolivan is the current leader, and Krolia was his second-in-command (and a fellow marauder when they were back in Hogwarts!).
> 
> When the Blades made their move against the pair of dark wizards, it went sideways. Honerva managed to banish Krolia, but not before Krolia’s enchanted dagger found its way into the dark witch’s heart. Also grievously wounded, Zarkon took his wife’s body (along with Krolia’s cloak and dagger) and managed to flee. Meanwhile, the Blades tallied their losses, including Krolia, and consoled themselves with the belief that they’d at least dealt a blow in killing Honerva— not realizing she had a horcrux to prevent her dying.
> 
> After visiting Heath to tell him of Krolia’s fate, Kolivan said goodbye to his toddler godson and swore to stay away for his own protection. Maintaining the Blade of Marmora was consuming work anyway, as was his search for a way to undo Honerva’s curse and bring Krolia back. Regretfully, he was halfway around the world when Keith’s father died and his godson was swept into the fostercare system, all without his knowledge. Once Kolivan got wind of it, he rushed back into Keith’s life just before his second year at Hogwarts began; he decided to wait until Keith was older before burdening him with the truth of his mother’s fate and the Blade of Marmora, though.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it!! Thank you to the super sweet [junowasdead](https://twitter.com/junowasdead) for making such a *chef’s kiss* sheith AU + gorgeous art in the first place <3

When Keith wakes, it almost feels as if the whole thing was nothing more than an especially vivid nightmare.

But he’s not in his familiar canopied bed in Gryffindor Tower, waking to the sounds of Hunk’s snoring and Lance’s constant rustling of blankets. There’s no smell of cinnamon wood and warm ash from the hearth, no squeaking from the window by his bed as the wind blows.

He lies in the hospital wing, long and mostly vacant, and the air here smells herbal. Medicinal. Clean. There are occasional twinges of pain from his cheek and as Keith gently touches fingertips to his own face, he remembers why. There’s no mirror to check his reflection in, but Keith can trace its length from the edge of his jaw to his cheekbone. It stops an inch shy of his right eye.

He tosses and turns to rest his other cheek on the pillow, and when he sees Shiro lying asleep in the bed beside him the nightmare sinks all the way into reality.

His arm is… gone. Still.

Keith’s brow knits tight as he worms deeper into the too-soft fluff of his pillow. He’d known no magic or healing could mend what Sendak had done, but…

Shiro looks blissful despite the heavy bandaging around his right shoulder, no doubt deeply soothed by Madam Te-osh’s pain draughts. His hair is also forever changed, it seems— that moonlit white, soft as a unicorn’s mane, pale enough to match the rest of the iconic Slytherin trio. His lashes fan delicately over his cheeks, resting just above the length of the scar he got from that Swedish Short-Snout, and underneath sleep-heavy lids his eyes are still.

No dreams. That’s probably for the best.

Shiro doesn’t wake when their friends come to visit in the morning— and all at the same time, to Madam Te-osh’s great consternation. They leave piles of gifts and candy and flowers on their nightstands before Hogwarts’ resident healer ushers them out to let Keith rest. His only other visitor that day— and Keith chalks that limitation up to Madam Te-osh’s protective ferocity when it comes to patients— is Headmaster Alfor.

Keith recounts everything of that night to the best of his ability, feeling drained merely by remembering it. An enchanted quill writes while he speaks, the headmaster himself focused entirely on listening and gently prodding for more details when Keith falls short. His shoulders slump inward as the story goes on, his brow furrowing deep. As Alfor apologizes for the danger they were subjected to, Keith sinks back deeper into the mattress. The good news is that the officials indeed ruled he and Shiro had both won the tournament. That much had stuck, and it gives Keith a much-needed reason to smile.

Headmaster Alfor also leaves a few gifts before he goes: Keith and Shiro’s wands, both recovered from the graveyard; the dagger, now cleaned and fitted with a sheath; and the invisibility cloak, neatly folded and bundled tight with a piece of twine. Last of all is a letter from Kolivan, still sealed with dark wax, which Keith waits to open until the headmaster takes his leave.

The letter contains an apology and a promise— no more secrets. Though the truth of what happened to his mother is reserved for a face-to-face conversation once Kolivan arrives, his godfather commits a few details to parchment for Keith to mull over.

_The dagger was your mother’s, as was the cloak. When we lost Krolia, they passed into the hands of our enemy. She would be glad to know they’d found their way back to you._

A day later, Keith is discharged from the hospital wing.

Shiro still sleeps, however, and Keith can’t bear the thought of leaving him alone. Madam Te-osh seems to understand, looking the other way as he overstays in the hospital wing. She doesn’t even mind when Lance and Hunk bring down his things from the Gryffindor dormitory and help stow them under his bed.

It’s late the next evening that Keith first sees signs of Shiro stir. He sits up, wondering if he ought to run to Madam Te-osh’s room to get her, but the moment Shiro’s eyes open Keith knows he won’t be able to pull himself from the other boy’s side.

He’s gone too long without his voice, his smile. He’s missed seeing the stormcloud grey of Shiro’s irises, somehow made even prettier by the new shade of his hair.

“You’re awake!” Keith switches from his bed to Shiro’s in a heartbeat, lightly perching on the edge of the mattress. He wants so badly to reach out and touch him. His fingers curl into the rumpled covers instead.

“You sound surprised,” Shiro murmurs groggily. Pain flits across his face when he shifts, followed closely after by surprise; he stares at his right shoulder, at his missing right arm, and then sinks back into his pillow. “Not a dream, then.”

Keith shakes his head. There’s a faint tremor in Shiro’s voice that he wishes he could vanish, though he has no idea how. Without thinking, Keith runs his hand back through Shiro’s white strands, brushing them from his forehead. The older boy’s eyes flutter shut at the touch, his mouth moving in a there-and-gone smile.

Shiro answers by snaking his left hand up to Keith’s face, settling under his chin. His touch delicately follows the discolored scar still left behind after all of Madam Te-osh’s healing. A permanent mark. “I did this to you.”

Keith takes Shiro’s wrist before he can draw back, holding his hand still. He tilts his head so his jaw is cradled in the warmth of Shiro’s palm. “No, _Sendak_ did. And you fought him off, Shiro. Coran says not many wizards can shrug off an Imperius Curse. Almost unheard of, actually. They should tack that onto your NEWT scores.”

Eyes shut, Shiro reluctantly smiles. His hand roves to cup around the back of Keith’s neck, fingers parting the dense mane of his hair. “Thanks, Keith.”

“Besides, we match now,” he reminds the older boy, tapping at his nose until one grey eye squints open and Shiro smiles in full.

* * *

The school year officially ends in three days.

Shiro is on track for a discharge by then, according to Madam Te-osh, even though he’s spent most of the past week lost in slumber.

Keith rarely leaves his side, except for bathroom breaks and short morning runs as he eases himself back into the old habit. It’s on his way back into the hospital wing after a quick circuit of the castle, dabbing the sweat from his forehead with the hem of his shirt, that he runs into Allura— literally.

“Keith! Good morning,” she says, her hands on his arms to steady him. Her eyes are a little red-rimmed and her voice thick, but she’s all smiles. “Shiro and I were just discussing some details for his new arm.”

“Oh?”

“Matt tried to convince him to go with one that has a lion’s mouth for a hand,” she says, sighing heavily, “but he opted for my design instead. I think it will be quite stylish! But… it won’t be ready before we depart. Another week, at least. Maybe two.”

Keith grunts an acknowledgement. It was a considerable undertaking, bound to take time, but she and Matt were determined to create a custom prosthetic for their friend. “He’ll love it, though.”

Allura nods to herself as she smoothes out the front of her robes, gaze a little downcast. Keith gets the feeling that creating Shiro’s new arm is a project of necessity for her— something to throw herself headlong into for distraction, a means of making _something_ right where so much else had gone wrong. “I certainly hope so.”

The little silence that follows is interrupted by footsteps on the stone floor and a hummed tune.

“Hey, Allura. Keith.” Lance greets them with a wave, two plates piled high with food carefully stacked on a single lanky arm. “I was just bringing you and Shiro some breakfast. Here, his plate is the one with a bacon smiley face.”

The food is shoved into Keith’s hands and he hastens not to drop it. Sure enough, one plate bears a cartoonish likeness to Shiro, right down to the whipped cream and shredded coconut hair. “And you didn’t make me one?”

“I did! Yours has the _frowny_ face bacon.” Lance beams as Keith makes an expression matching his plate. “See? There it is! Perfect likeness.”

Allura giggles and tilts her head, gaze drifting from the breakfast to Keith and back again. “It _does_ have your eyebrows, Keith. Oh, and Shiro’s has a little smoked salmon scar, too! How delightfully charming.”

“Uh, I’d have brought you something if I’d known you were down here visiting, Allura,” Lance mumbles, blushing as he rubs nervously at the back of his neck.

“Oh, no, that’s perfectly fine,” she says, giving Keith a little wave as he lifts his chin at the both of them and takes his leave into the hospital wing. “In fact, I was just thinking that I could use a walk to clear my head. Would you mind coming with me?”

Keith can still hear their conversation trailing off as he approaches the bed where Shiro sits cross-legged, expression screwed up tight as he practices writing with his left hand.

“Here, Lance made this one for you,” Keith says, his lingering frown vanishing as Shiro’s face lights up at the decoration on his breakfast plate.

They sit facing one another on Shiro’s bed while they eat, Keith occasionally reaching over to cut unwieldy portions of sausage and french toast into bite-sized pieces for Shiro.

“Good run?” Shiro asks in between forkfuls of a breakfast hash. He’s still in pajamas, the loose right sleeve pinned in place, his black robes draped over his shoulders.

Keith nods. “Yeah. Saw the thestrals poking around. Looking for you, maybe. Missing the hand that feeds them.”

Shiro makes a soft sound, touched.

“We’ll pay them a visit before we leave,” Keith promises. Hell, he'll corral the thestrals and bring them in _here_ if he has to. “I, uh, heard you settled on a design for your prosthetic, by the way. And it’s _not_ the one with the lion-hand?”

“No,” the Slytherin snorts. “Can you imagine? He said he could enchant it to fire a laser beam, too. I opted out.”

“Smart,” Keith says, laughing around his food. “Can’t imagine the Quidditch league allowing a Chaser with a laser arm. And how would you catch the quaffle?”

Shiro’s laugh trails off into a low, thoughtful hum. “I’m not exactly worried about that… not as many Quidditch teams sniffing around me now that I’m missing an arm, y’know.”

Keith sets his knife and fork down on his mostly cleared plate and forces himself to swallow down his food half-chewed. He can feel the familiar tingle of fire in his blood, rising dangerously at the thought of Shiro being spurned.

“Then they’re _idiots,_ Shiro. You’ll have a functioning prosthetic soon anyway, but you’re still probably better at Quidditch one-armed than most pros are with two. You’re a great Chaser, a great leader, and they’ll regret overlooking you,” Keith says, the words spilling out in a rush. “You’re the best, Shiro. The way you fly is— it’s mesmerizing. There’s nothing like it. No one like you.”

Shiro smiles shyly and keeps his gaze lowered. There’s color on his cheeks as he busies himself with pushing his food around on his plate. “That’s… awfully sweet of you, Keith. But it’s okay. Really. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect this past week, and I don’t think pro Quidditch is for me. Not that I don’t want to keep flying,” he quickly amends. “I’ll never give that up.”

It takes Keith a minute to process that. “So… what is it you want to do, then?”

“Work as an auror, maybe. Probably. Allura and I talked about it, and if there’s a chance of bringing Lotor back safe… well, the best odds are if one of us finds him first.” He takes on a note of apology, his look full of soft pleading. “He needs to be held accountable for what he did to you. What he tried to do. But he’s still…”

“I know,” Keith replies. Still their friend of years, as tightly bound to Shiro’s heart as Allura is. “I understand.”

And he did. Lotor’s family was dark, his circumstances a breeding ground for coercion. Too easily Keith could see himself in a place like Lotor’s, manipulated with the promise of having his mother returned to him. Still, the thought of Shiro chasing down the very people responsible for the loss of his arm makes Keith sweat cold. 

“I can’t live some other kind of life knowing they’re out there,” Shiro continues, now staring out a window as he chews one strawberry after another. “Knowing they… they’ll just come after you again, Keith, once they’re stronger. They _will_. And I can’t just sit at a desk or play Quidditch and let that happen.”

Keith flushes dark at the fierceness in Shiro’s tone, the protectiveness. The same thought had crossed his mind often as they’d laid side-by-side in hospital beds: dark wizards knew his name, his face, his friends. They hated his mother and her family, the Marmora, for cutting them at the knees at the height of their power. They knew they could use him for his quintessence again...

“You don’t have to, Shiro. Don’t do it for me,” he whispers weakly. Shiro had already put himself between Keith and these people once before; he’d suffered terribly for it, too. 

“For us, then,” is all Shiro says as he shifts a sausage from his plate to Keith’s and then takes the Gryffindor’s cantaloupe in exchange. He’s quieter as he adds, “And for Lotor, too.”

* * *

Their last day at Hogwarts is bright— clear skied, hopeful, spirits soaring higher than they have in weeks. Together, Keith and Shiro feed the thestrals shortly before they’re due to be harnessed to draw the carriages, the creatures excitedly sniffing at Shiro’s white hair and tenderly nosing at the place his arm ought to be.

They then walk the grounds together side-by-side, their trunks already packed and loaded, nothing left but a few hours until they board the train for home. More than once he and Shiro bump shoulders and brush arms, and after the fifth or sixth time they stop murmuring apologies for drifting into each other’s personal space.

“So, the Holts were planning on throwing a party over the summer,” Shiro says. They’re dangerously close to leaning into each other again— not that Keith minds it. “It started out as just a graduation party, but now I think it’s morphed into a general celebration of us surviving the school year.”

Keith smiles. “Yeah, Pidge told me. I’ll be there.”

Kolivan had promised to begin training him against the dark arts over the summer, in the same tradition his mother had known, but his godfather had been more than willing to allow him some time with his friends first.

“Oh? Great! They, uh— they think I’ll have my new arm by then,” Shiro says, his cheeks growing faintly redder by the moment. “So maybe we could bring our broomsticks and I could teach you some feints and other aerials? And give you some pointers? Not that you _need_ them, obviously.” 

“I’d like that. A lot.” He’s going to miss watching Shiro fly during Slytherin practices and house matches, a powerful blur of shimmery green streaking across the pitch. He’s going to miss him in more ways and moments than he thinks he can grasp at the present moment.

They pass the Whomping Willow, where Keith tells Shiro about how he and his friends would hurl pumpkins into the air for the tree to whap into pieces, giggling as they’d dodge the splatters of orange guts. Then the lake, where they’d explored the depths during the second task, which now feels _ages_ ago. And they’re not far from Merlin’s Gate when Shiro takes his hand and gently tugs him to a stop.

“Keith, I— I died.”

The softly spoken words send a ripple of shock through Keith, a terrible reminder of what had happened that night, and Shiro immediately reflects back his own expression of horror and panic. 

“No! I didn’t mean to— fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to say it like that.” Shiro runs his hand through the pale crown of his hair. “I’m— I’ve spent two weeks thinking about all the things I wanted to say to you and never did, Keith. That’s all. My soul briefly exiting my body gave me some perspective, I guess.”

“That’ll do it,” Keith whispers softly, eyes still wide at the suggestion of just how close he’d been to losing Shiro for good. He squeezes Shiro’s hand so hard it has to hurt, desperate for the reassurance of the older boy’s warmth against his scarred palm.

Shiro’s thick brows raise in an amused sort of agreement. His voice cracks a little. “Yeah. Sure will.”

Keith lets Shiro draw him in another step, til they’re toe-to-toe and he can see the quick rise and fall of Shiro’s chest under his green-striped Slytherin tie and slightly wrinkled vest.

“I wish I’d asked you to dance at the Yule Ball,” Shiro admits. “I wish I’d told you how handsome you looked, too— red really is your color. Lucky thing you’re a Gryffindor, I guess,” he adds, thumbing at the crimson lining of Keith’s black robes.

“ _You_ looked amazing at the Yule Ball,” Keith blurts out at once, his cheeks inflamed. “You always do, but your dress robes were really… _wow_. And the cape, too. You could've been a prince or something. And as much I’d have loved to dance with you, Shiro, I wasn’t exaggerating about how bad I am,” Keith adds. “It would’ve cost you a toe or two.”

Shiro laughs softly, undeterred. “Would’ve been worth it.”

His eyes are dark, pupils so wide that there’s only a slivered ring of grey running around them, looking more like the silver lining of a cloud than ever; Keith can’t look away. “I like you, Keith. Very, very much. And I didn’t want to leave here without telling you how I— how _deeply_ — h-how you’ve— um, you’re so important, Keith, and not just to me, I know, but I…”

For a moment, the older boy squirms, clearly uncertain, and Keith is momentarily stunned that Shiro— so bold and driven when it comes to academics and flying and everything else— is shy about _this_. Shiro, who’d thrown himself between Keith and mortal danger without hesitation, stands here fumbling over a confession. 

“Shiro, listen,” Keith says, and immediately the tight furrow between the older boy’s brows lessens. Keith pushes his free hand up Shiro’s chest, over the silky smooth darkness of black robes lined in Slytherin green, and doesn’t stop until he strokes up the length of his neck and works his fingers into short, white hair. “I love you.”

It’s the truth, even if it seems forward to say out loud. They’ve never kissed, never danced together, never gone for a date in Hogsmeade, never even held hands before today, but Keith knows it as surely as he’s coming to know himself. That night in the graveyard had left him with many questions, but it had given answers, too. And there was no room for doubt after his desperate bid to save Shiro, fully prepared to lose himself in the attempt.

He can feel the way Shiro goes slack under his touch, relief pushing the tension out of those strong shoulders. Keith curls his hand around the back of his neck, thumb grazing at a delicate spot behind Shiro’s ear, and draws him down until their noses brush together.

His eyes flutter shut at the heady feel of warm breath on his skin and Shiro’s soft scent, so painfully welcome after two weeks spent drowning in the medicinal smell of the hospital wing. Eager, he mouths blindly at every inch of Shiro he can reach, their chins bumping as he rises up on his tiptoes; there’s a huff of amusement against his cheek, and shortly after Shiro catches his lips in a kiss that aligns their mouths just right.

Keith’s _first_ kiss. He melts against Shiro, all his weight leaned into the Slytherin he trusts to support him, and tries not to whine when they finally break for a much-needed breather. He’s already wondering what it’ll take to get Lance and the others to move to other compartments on the train so he and Shiro can have some privacy on the ride.

“Thanks,” Shiro says, almost sheepish. He runs his thumb along the inside of Keith’s wrist, their fingers still twined together. “You know, I’m really coming to appreciate the bravery of Gryffindors. You really just went for it, huh?”

Keith’s little smirk grows, chest puffed with confidence. “Yup.”

While they’re still hidden in the castle’s shadow, he tugs the taller boy in for another kiss, thumb stroking along the sharp, handsome cut of his jaw and fingers raking through his hair. Shiro’s soft, pleased moans are going to haunt his idle thoughts from now until the Holts’ party in two weeks.

The heavy chime of a bell makes them both start, reluctant and red-faced as they resume course to the castle entrance, where the thestral-drawn carriages are already being loaded. 

Shiro clears his throat while they walk, their clasped hands gently swinging. “So, if the Auror Office accepts my application for the training program—”

“They will,” Keith dryly interjects, not sure why Shiro’s bothering to downplay himself now. Sure, aurors are a demanding elite, but Shiro was at the top of his class, had excelled on his NEWTs, and probably had a two-foot stack of recommendations from professors and ministry officials alike. There’s no question that he’ll qualify for the program, and Allura too if she opts to go that route. 

“That’s three more years of education,” Shiro sighs out, raking a hand through the short, snowy hair at his nape. “And we’d be apart most of the year, regardless.”

“You’ll write me, won’t you?” Keith asks, smiling as Shiro trips over himself to promise he will. “And you could still apparate to Hogsmeade on the weekends to visit.”

“I could?” Shiro ponders it. There’s a slight widening of his eyes that comes with the realization. “I _could_...”

“I have my mom’s map _and_ invisibility cloak now,” Keith adds, shrugging. And they have summer break… but defense against the dark arts training with Kolivan will eat up most of his time, and Shiro has to brush up for the auror academy— 

 _Oh._ An idea sears its way into Keith’s mind, burning too hot to be ignored for even a moment. His steps turn bouncy as he proposes it to Shiro: Kolivan training _both_ of them over the summer, together, like a class all their own.

“A whole summer with your godfather, huh?” Shiro says, a nervous note to the hum that comes out after. They’d only met briefly in the hospital wing when Kolivan came to collect him for a few hours’ worth of discussion, but Keith knew his godfather’s demeanor could be… intimidating.

“A whole summer with _me_ ,” Keith submits as they approach an empty carriage— stopping first to pet the large thestral harnessed to it— and wave to their friends as they descend the stony steps from the castle entrance.

“You make a very compelling argument,” Shiro murmurs as he helps Keith up the stairs into the carriage.

Space becomes something of an issue as Lance, Allura, Hunk, and Pidge all file in after them. Keith presses close to the far wall as Shiro scoots over to make room for Pidge, the older boy blushing as he apologizes for thoroughly invading Keith’s personal space.

It’s awkward at first, if only because there are so many other people around and this much contact with Shiro is still new. But as the carriage lurches into motion and they settle against each other, Keith relaxes. There’s comfort in being close to Shiro, and in the reassurance that he’s safe here in Keith’s presence. And vice versa— they saved each other, after all.

Being snugly tucked against Shiro’s side is nice enough that Keith doesn’t even mind when Lance uses his knee for a footrest while he tells Allura all about the family that’ll be waiting for him back on the train platform. It’s even better when Shiro takes his hand and holds it gently in his lap, stroking Keith’s knuckles while he listens attentively to Pidge and Hunk’s plans for the upcoming party.

Keith leans _all_ the way into Shiro, his cheek resting on the older boy’s strong shoulder, and smiles to himself when he feels the large hand around his own curl tighter in response. A contented sigh stirs strands of his unruly hair, and it’s followed a moment after by a tender kiss pressed to the crown of Keith’s head.

It’s an absolute testament to their friends’ deep love and concern for them after the trauma of the tournament’s end that not one of them— not even Lance— takes the opportunity to roast them for subjecting the whole carriage to their public display of affection. Instead, Lance and Allura pointedly chat about something in the woods, while Hunk glumly passes a few silver sickles to Pidge.

And Keith closes his eyes and lets himself enjoy the rest of the ride with Shiro by his side. It’s been a long year. They deserve it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! I had such a good time writing this and it was hard to see it end ;_;
> 
>  **unnecessary notes:**  
>  Hunk and Pidge kept a vial of the Felix Felicitis they made earlier in the school year, which they gave to Keith as one of his many get-well-soon gifts after the tournament. Keith in turn gives it to Shiro because he wants him to be the one to have a Perfect Day.
> 
> Kolivan (and Antok) do train Shiro and Keith together over the summer. In their eyes, the fact that Shiro is willing to endure weeks of their scrutiny and demanding training just to be close to Keith makes him… acceptable.


End file.
